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The Abingdon Religious Education Texts 
David G. Mowney, General Cditor 


WEEK-DAY SCHOOL SERIES GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, Editor 


Out Into Lite 


A Handbook for Young Men 
Facing the Choice of a Vocation 
and the Adventure of Living 


By 
DOUGLAS HORTON 





THE ABINGDON PRESS 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 


Copyright, 1924, by 
DOUGLAS HORTON 


All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, 
including the Scaudinavian 


Printed in the United States of America 


TO BYRON HORTON AND 
ELIZABETH DOUGLAS HORTON 
MY FATHER AND MOTHER 





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III. 
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VI. 


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IX. 
2. 
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CONTENTS 


. EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE..... 


PAGE 
RATAN OT SED ES Hk trier age hy Ree Ra A ad gas 7 
FURR MURULYs GREATOLIE Es Maun ee oa 9 
WYER NO UNSELEISH Mall Eira cena. 17 
ARUATI TOLIBE: WORK epian ur ton 2 
AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR 
RIOD Soares iat y aespen ots athe Uae ec tap ics 
LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING....... 43 
MANUFACTURING, THE ROMANCE OF 
INUAKING SV EINGSN ryt carder gas 52 
BUILDING THE WORLD WE LivE IN. 62 
MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBOR- 
HOOD—TRANSPORTATION.......... ny 
THE SERVICE PERFORMED BY Ma- 
CHINISTAAND ARTISAN Mics. . e 80 
THE COMMERCIAL ‘TRADES — THE 
BUSINESS OF BUYING........... 89 
THE COMMERCIAL ‘TRADES — THE 
BUSINESS TORT SELLING... Wipe 99 
Pent EN ANDY MONEY} 40 hb a ee 108 
. CLERICAL WorK: THE FOUNDATION 
REPO USINESS ie unstie tri o/c eee Tee 
MMIC TTL UMAN cOIDE ha ol nc une 126 
. Tue ‘‘PROFESSIONS’’—RESEARCH AND 
BR Cabal cht cet cue aa NE oy! ota ae 134 
. THE ENGINEER, MASTERER OF THE 
RORCES OF, NATURE.) Soa. 143 
. MEDICINE IN THE SERVICE OF Hv- 
BEN NET Ve ea ents Oa ee Be 152 
. SOCIAL WorRK: HELPING OTHERS TO 
PLETE? CABMSELVES SG Ses one o nok 160 


CHAPTER 


XX. 


». 0.4 F 
XXII. 
XXIII. 
XXIV. 


XXV. 


XXVI. 
XXVII. 
XXVIII. 
XXIX. 
XXX. 
XXXI. 


XXXII. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

JourNALISM: A UNIVERSAL In- 
FLUENCE aa ctan tery etree eens 177 
THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE... 185 


THEXMINISTRYVAT HOME foe eee 194 
OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY... 202 
POINTS TO CONSIDER IN JUDGING A 
VOCATION. (iacs ose telat herman 211 
PoINTS TO CONSIDER IN JUDGING 
YOURSELF wong hy cee ee 220 
GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB...... 226 
Your COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY.... 235 
THE: WORLD CITIZEN. hoe eee 244 
HOME AND MARRIAGE............. 253 
SAVING, DIME i) Cone yt, eee ae 261 
SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GooD 
HABITS 7... oe ecassavene each ae pene ast ae 269 


THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 278 


FOREWORD 


THis book lies on the borderland between the 
literature of vocational guidance and Christian 
ethics. It is designed to meet the needs of young 
men at the time they are forming their practical 
philosophy of life. What they decide to-day the 
world will largely accept as authority to-morrow. 
These young men hold the key to the Christianiza- 
tion of the social order. Because the issues are 
so immense I would the book were more perfectly 
executed. It is, in the nature of the case, only 
an outline, but I hope that the essential facts here 
presented in the light of Christian idealism will 
make it a useful introduction to life and life-work. 

I take this opportunity of thanking those who 
have generously reviewed certain chapters for me: 
Frank K. Hallock, M.D.; the Hon. E. Kent Hub- 
bard, President, and Mr. C. L. Eyenson, Mr. H. J. 
Smith, Mr. W. M. Dower, and Miss A. B. Sands, 
of the Manufacturers’ Association of Connecticut; 
Alfred E. Mudge, Esq.; and William North 
Rice, LL.D. 





CHAPTER I 
THE TRULY GREAT LIFE 


THE hero of this book is yourself. The adven- 
turous figure which casts its shadow on every page 
is your own. Had it not been for you, the book 
would never have been dreamed of: it is written 
concerning you and for you. You may make it 
the most important and interesting one you ever 
read. 

Life calling to youth.—The scene in which the 
hero moves is life itself. The book is a kind of 
drama which you might entitle ‘““Myself and Life.” 
Elsewhere you have studied sections of life—its 
literature, its science, or its other branches—but 
now you look at life as a whole. You ask yourself 
the colossal question which marks your entrance 
into manhood: ‘‘How can I live a really great life?” 

This life toward which you look—what an amaz- 
ing, splendid sight it is! Its thousand motions, 
lights, and colors fascinate the dullest eye. It is 
full of loves and hates and prides, of crime, guilt, 
and cunning, of arresting heroism, loveliness, fine 
sanity—of all the virtues and all the vices. Now 
and again are found broken spirits and bowed 
heads, but there are also upturned faces, out- 
stretched arms, and exultant voices. At first 
glance life seems to be mere chaos, but as one 
studies it, there presently emerges a kind of order. 
It is like one of the Italian plays in which no cur- 
tain is used: the confusion of scenery, furniture, 


9 


OUT INTO LIFE 


and properties between the acts staggers the eye, 
but while the audience watches, the disorder grad- 
ually assumes the semblance of a scene. 

Three possible attitudes toward life.—All men 
can be classified as having one of three attitudes 
toward life. These correspond to the three general 
stages in the development of man. God has been 
educating our race. In the early days the struggle 
for mere physical existence was the chief concern 
of men and animals alike. The law of the jungle 
in which they lived was: Livel—kill if you will, 
but live you must! There was something heroic 
about these first men, who lived according to the 
light they had. 


Given over to fearful crime and passion, plunged in the 
blackest ignorance, preyed upon by hideous and gro- 
tesque delusions, yet steadfastly serving the profoundest 
of ideals in their fixed faith that existence in any form is 
better than nonexistence, they rescued triumphantly 
from the jaws of ever imminent destruction the torch of 
life which, thanks to them, now lights the world for us. 


So William James describes them. But with all their 
heroism, their conduct did not much differ from 
that of the beasts among which they lived. They 
killed and ate like the wolf-dogs they had not yet 
tamed; they fled for safety from their enemies to 
the nearest cave; and made their prey of anything 
they were strong enough to kill. It was a mortal 
combat in which the weak received no quarter. 
With the coming of language and imagination, 
whereby one man could understand the inner life 
of another, the race rose to a fuller kind of life. 
There was just as much struggle in it, but there 
10 


THEVTRULY GREAT LCIPE 


was more of justice in the struggle. The law now 
became ‘‘Live!—and let live!’ It was still every 
man for himself, but now it was deemed wrong 
for men to prey upon each other. Each man with- 
out exception, or with very few exceptions, was 
to have the right to live. Aristotle, one of the 
greatest thinkers of this ancient world, described 
an ideal man as one who pursued his own interests 
and allowed others to pursue theirs. 


He is great-minded who values himself highly, and at 
the same time justly. The great-minded man has honor 
for his object: honor is what he considers himself specially 
worthy of. It would not be in the character of the great- 
minded to injure anyone. He will live independent of all 
other men save his close friends. He does not bear malice 
nor does he talk of other men at all. 


This is a high ideal, to be sure, but is there not 
lacking a certain brotherliness, such as was found 
in the Man who ‘‘went about doing good’? Is 
there not something in life more valuable than 
personal honor? 

With the spread of the Christian gospel life 
reached a height which early man had never dreamed 
of and which the world before Christ’s coming 
only feebly and uncertainly touched. The key- 
word, “Live!” was still retained, and so was the 
struggle it represented, but living now began to 
mean something more even than ‘“‘live and let 
live.’ Edwin Markham has caught the idea: 


*“*Tive and let live!’ was the call of the Old, 
The call of the world when the world was cold, 
The call of men when they pulled apart, 

The call of the race with a chill on the heart. 


IT 


OUT INTOVETRE 


“But ‘Live and help live!’ is the cry of the New, 
The cry of the world with the Dream shining through, 
The cry of the Brother-world rising to birth, 
The cry of the Christ for a Comrade-like Earth.” 


“T am come,’ said Christ, ‘‘that they might 
have life, and that they might have it more abun- 
dantly.”” He came to help men live; and he himself 
lived life to the full because he was taken up not 
only with his own experiences, but with the joys 
and sorrows of everyone he knew. 

Many men are still living on the live-and-kill- 
if-you-will level; others have reached the idea of 
living and letting live; and one of the first ques- 
tions for which life will demand an answer from 
you is whether you have strength, brains, and sym- 
pathy enough to live the lofty life of helpfulness 
of a completely grown man. You have the oppor- 
tunity of living like an animal, like a self-centered 
pagan, or like a Christian: you may be hostile, 
indifferent, or brotherly toward others; and which- 
ever attitude toward life you choose, you will 
find ample companionship. 

The challenge to success.—In one respect you 
will find life the same everywhere. There is always 
a chance for success in it. Every day brings its 
opportunity for achievement. Of course if there 
is in life a chance for success, there must also be 
a chance for failure. To men who forge ahead it 
never ceases to be a brilliant adventure. Robert 
Browning exclaimed: 


‘How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to 
employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!”’ 
12 


THE TRULY:GREAT LIFE 


Yet there are those who have somehow failed 
to discover its secret. Robert Burns, on a blue 
Monday, wrote: 


“O life! thou art a galling load, 
Along a rough, a weary road, 
To wretches such as I!’ 


You may depend upon it that you will be sing- 
ing either the tune of Burns or of Browning forty 
years hence. There is something fearful about the 
possibility of losing in the game of life: it makes 
one shudder to think of himself as a broken, sad 
old man. A healthy youth, therefore, remembering 
that there could be no victory unless there were 
also a chance for defeat, accepts life as a challenge 
to do his best, and submerges every fear of failure 
in—what? When you have finished studying this 
book you will be better able to answer. 

Success is too thrilling to describe. It is the 
tide of fire that rushes tumultuous through your 
mind when you know you have done a thing well; 
it is the felt immensity of the power that God has 
implanted in you. Success—who would not strive 
for it? 

Three kinds of success.—And yet, is every 
success equally desirable? If there are three grades 
of human ideals, it stands to reason there must 
be three kinds of success. 

The success of the man who preys upon his 
generation must always be accompanied by the 
hate that his fellows bear toward him. He has 
chosen the way of the jungle and he must pay its 
price. The first Napoleon made himself monarch 
of Europe. He was a success, doubtless, and many 


13 


OUT INTO LIFE 


people envied him. But he was the general who 
called men ‘‘cannon-fodder.’’ H. G. Wells says 
of him: 


He had a vast contempt for man in general and man in 
particular. There is no proof that this unbrotherly, un- 
humorous egotist was ever sincerely loved by any human 
being. He had no familiar friend. No one who knew 
him felt safe with him. 


He died a lonely man in exile, and Europe sighed 
in relief. 

Is the success of those others who, in self-con- 
tentment, seek only to live and let live, really 
enjoyable? A man shot himself recently in a 
great city, as many men do daily. He was a club- 
man who lived in easy luxury. He had servants 
to wait upon him. He was a genial fellow, but he 
never made himself responsible for any one save 
himself. He sowed indifference, and it was indii- 
ference which he reaped. He had no real friends 
who cared. Finally he concluded, probably with 
truth, that his life was not worth the living. 

The good-Samaritan type of man never, as long 
as he lives, lacks the joyous consciousness that 
his life is supremely worth while, for his is the 
subtle and wonderful delight of having friends. 
James Whitcomb Riley understood the secret. 
To one of his many friends he wrote: 


. . . You cheer me, 
My old friend, 
For to know you and be near you, 
My old friend, 


1 Outline of History. The Macmillan Company, publishers. Used 
by permission. 





14 


THE TRULY GREAT LIFE 


Makes my hopes of clearer light 

And my faith of surer sight 

And my soul of purer white, 
My old friend.’’! 


For Discussion 


1. Is the world really any better to-day than it was cen- 
turies ago—in the time of Jesus, for instance? 

2. Does every man, even the most Christian, show him- 
self in a pinch, as, for instance, in the excitement 
of battle, to be really a savage underneath? 

3. Suppose Jesus had planned his life on the live-and-let- 
live principle. Would he have gone about teach- 
ing? Might he have been a carpenter? the best 
kind of carpenter? Would he have been crucified? 

4. We speak of “making friends,” but can one really 
cause people to be friendly to him? Is not friend- 
ship like popularity in that it comes to those who 
seek it least? 

5. Of the three principles, live-and-kill, live-and-let-live, 
live-and-help-live, which one are the nations living 
by? and America? 

6. Which do ordinary business men have to live by? 


For FurtTHER STUDY 


7. Study the story Jesus told as you find it in Matthew 
18. 23-35. Is it a principle of life that we can 
expect from God only the kind of treatment that 
we give our fellow men? 

8. The text reads: ‘‘A healthy youth . . . submerges 
every fear of failure in—what?’ How would you 
answer the question now? 





1 From the Biographical Edition of the complete works of James 
Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1913. Used by special permission of 
the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 


15 


OUT INTO LIFE 


9. Read a brief life of some successful man and point 
out what made him a success. 

10. Briefly but honestly, how do you yourself hope to 
achieve success? 


For REFERENCE 


H. E. Luccock, The Haunted House, Chapter I. 
G. S. Lee, Crowds, Book II, Chapters II, XIII. 


16 


CHAPTER II 
WHY AN UNSELFISH LIFE 


You have been taught the duty of living a strong, 
unselfish life since earliest boyhood. But if you 
have the stuff of manhood in you, you are no longer 
willing to believe a thing simply because you have 
been taught to believe it. It is no longer a case 
of ‘‘this is so because Aunt Matilda says it’s so!” 
Your elders have always insisted that living and 
helping live is the best rule of conduct; but maybe 
they were wrong! Nietzsche said, “Every man 
for himself” was a better rule. Maybe he was 
right! How will you know? 

There is only one way. It is clear that you 
must think the matter out for yourself. Look 
at the world you live in squarely: see what it is; 
draw your own conclusions. 

The world is opportunity.—One thing is certain: 
the world (and by this we mean the universe, 
everything in life taken as a whole, the sum of 
all things) is presented to us as opportunity. It 
lies before us almost limitless—to do with as we 
will. It is not something we have earned, but 
comes to us as a free gift. We are no more deserv- 
ing of praise for having it here than for causing 
the sun to shine. The whole warm health-giving 
earth, the long stirring history of the past, with 
its book lore and practical wisdom, the whole 
army of heroes, eager to show us the way of success 
—they owe nothing to us, and yet they are all 


17 


OUT INTO LIFE 


at our service. We are the heirs of all the centuries. 

What is this “‘world” which provides us oppor- 
tunity? Where did it come from? What is its 
purpose? What lies behind it all? If you received 
an anonymous Christmas gift of several thousand 
dollars, you would immediately and properly leap 
to the conclusion that some rich person was inter- 
ested in you. No poor person, much as he might 
have wished to, could have given you such an 
amount. The world is, as it were, an anonymous 
gift, or, rather, a number of anonymous gifts. The 
best way to find out where it came from and what 
lies behind it is to examine it, a giver being known 
by his gift. 

At the heart of the world there is Power.— 
Look, for instance, at the sky on a cloudless night. 
Many of those stars, some of which have a circum- 
ference greater than the orbit of the earth, are racing 
through space at a rate of more than a score of miles 
a second. What energy! Everywhere, indeed, in 
earthquakes, storms, or less sudden manifestations, 
the world exhibits tremendous forces. Are we not 
bound to avow that the giver of such gifts must 
possess power? ‘The cause must have in it as much 
energy as the effect. In the source of the world 
there must be Power. 

At the heart of the world there is Intelligence. 
—But the world is more than the forces of nature. 
The men in it are part of it. When we remember 
the great thinkers of the past, such as, for example, 
Isaiah, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, a moment’s 
reflection makes it clear that the world cannot 
have been given us by a mere mechanical force. 
Such a blind power could perhaps produce a vol- 

18 


WHY AN UNSELFISH LIFE 


canic eruption, but it cannot have created Aristotle. 
No stream flows higher than its source: no creation 
can be more intelligent or in any way rise higher 
than its creator. You cannot conceive a thinking 
man made by a force which is not itself capable 
of thinking. In the source of the world there 
must be Intelligence as well as Power. 

At the heart of the world there is Love.—And 
another of the world’s anonymous gifts is Jesus 
Christ. I cannot watch him going about doing 
good and finally choosing to go to his death rather 
than be untrue to his friends, without saying to 
myself: “It is certain that the One who gave us 
Jesus Christ must be like him—filled with good 
will.” In him we cannot have gathered a grape 
of a thorn, nor a fig of a thistle. The world itself 
must have a heart like Christ’s, to have been capable 
of producing him. In the source of the world there 
must be not only Power and Intelligence, but 
Love as well. 

The force which lies behind the world, since it 
possesses power, intelligence, and love, is not a 
thing but a Person. Not being neuter in gender, 
it is properly spoken of not as “it”? but as “‘he.” 
He is God. God is in the world as you are in 
your body. He is the loving, intelligent power 
who controls it. ‘‘Every good gift and every per- 
fect gift is from above, and cometh down from 
the Father.” 

So the situation is something like this: it is a 
loving God who has intrusted a life to you and 
me—the very one we now hold, for success or 
failure, and the only one we ever shall hold. We 
did nothing to win or deserve it, but it is ours. 


19 


OUT INTO (RIB 


Life is an affair of honor.—Can any real man 
escape the feeling that, since he has received so 
much from God, he is on his honor to make the 
best return he can? Doctor Kelman quotes a 
quaint bit of modern autobiography. A British 
traveler on a walking trip through France, “waking 
in his grassy bed in the open air, felt how hos- 
pitably he had been treated in the great hostelry 
of Nature, and left certain coins on the wayside 
in payment, feeling that he was in debt to some- 
body for such entertainment.’ This was an idle 
vagabond’s fancy, but a like sense of gratitude 
for the world he lives in is the feeling of every 
heroic person. There are doubtless, however, better 
ways of showing one’s gratitude to God than by 
leaving him a tip. 

When the country is in danger you will rise to 
defend it. It is a simple affair of honor. The 
country has given you security, education, pleasant © 
neighborhoods. Whatever you possess of true 
greatness will compel you to feel a debt to it. You 
will attempt to repay that debt by doing what it 
wants you to do. 

In precisely the same manner a man attempts 
to repay his debt to God—by doing what he wants 
him to do. There are men who admit their obliga- 
tion to the past, but refuse to act so as to benefit 
the future. ‘“‘What has the future done for me?” 
they ask. They forget that their debt is not to 
the future as such, but to God, and that it is only 
through the future that they can repay him for 
all the opportunities he has stored up for them 
during the past. Strip the problem of life of all 
its trimmings and you can state it simply: God 

20 


WHY AN UNSELFISH LIFE 


has done much for us—what are we going to do 
for him? 

What does he want us to do with our oppor- 
tunities? How can we best show our gratitude? 
By living selfishly, without regard to the rest of 
his children—or by living and helping live? It 
is a plain question. Your life will show whether 
you are a cheap ingrate or not. 

Thinking straight.——Now, then, does all this 
appeal to you as true? If it does, well and good. 
If it does not, what is your own thought about 
life? The essential thing is that you, and every 
other one of us, should work out our own beliefs; 
and we may rest assured that if those beliefs do 
not correspond with facts—if, for instance, we do 
not think God exists when he really does, or if we 
think we owe him no gratitude—we are en route 
for failure and unhappiness. You will not sail 
far with an improperly adjusted compass. Get 
the facts of life and think them through to what 
they imply. | 

To-day’s the day!—All that has been said of 
life as opportunity may be amplified a hundred- 
fold to-day. You face the most thrilling years 
the world has ever seen. The meek past can only 
congratulate you. If you would know how inter- 
esting a neighborhood the planet has become, 
glance at the headlines of the morning paper: 


“SAyS INTERNATIONAL DEBT IS Not UNDERSTOOD” 


We await the expert in finance who by sheer 
ability to think will rescue his nation and his gen- 
eration from burdens now becoming intolerable. 

21 


OUT INTO LIFE 


“FRANCE AND GERMANY MAy CLASH TO-DAY” 


Mutual suspicion and hatred still sway the 
policies of nations: if you were a senator, would 
you have the inward vision and strength, when 
the many-throated mob murmured against you, 
to hold your ground and stand for peace? No 
war of the past held the terrors the next war will 
unfold. 


“PLANS TO IMPROVE CITY OF JERUSALEM”’ 


That ancient stronghold of the Jebusites has 
been waiting thirty centuries for modern engineers. 


“RADIO NEWS” 


The telegraph was a miracle one hundred years 
ago: you may be the inventor who will make the 
radio seem old-fashioned. 


“INSANITY SHOWS DECREASE” 


Never before has the human race attacked with 
such vigor and success the diseases of body and 
mind. 


““MoRE DISCUVERIES IN AZTECS’ HOMES” 


If you love research, discovery, study, you have 
more information and equipment at your disposal 
than Plato or Copernicus had. The world into 
which you are stepping is marvelous beyond the 
wild conceits of prophets: yours are summoning 
times! 

Why this preparation?—You fling the question 
to your advisers: ‘‘Well, then, if I am to find my 
place in life, to achieve, to become someone, to 

22 


WHY AN UNSELFISH LIFE 


pay back to God my debt of honor, to live and help 
live, why not begin? Why this delay? Why this 
pastime of schooling?” Doubtless some of your 
friends are already out doing the world’s work. 
They are independent of school restrictions, they 
have money of their own, they go where they like, 
not hounded by studies; they are, or seem to be, 
captains of their fate. But think. The young 
brave in a tribe of savages comes to his own much 
sooner than either you or your friends. He has 
learned all the arts of war and peace, has won the 
scars of his first battle, has done his courting and 
married his wife long before his twenty-first birth- 
day. The lower a man is in the scale of civilization, 
the less he has to learn and the shorter, consequently, 
is his period of education. If you desire to live 
like a savage, you may cease training your mind 
as early as he. Your friends do not look very far 
into the future if they regard as a headstart in 
the world what is really the handicap of inadequate 
training. The ill-prepared man is sure to be out- 
distanced, however early he may have started. 
To fulfill your debt of honor, to live a truly great 
and useful life, make thorough preparation! 


For Discussion 

1. Should not a young man always obey his parents— 
even to the point of believing what they teach him 
to believe? 

2. Which shows greater power—a great volcano or a 
great man? 

3. Do not give a saintly answer to this one: Which 
does the world need more of—intelligent men or 
good men? 

4. If God is good, why does he send earthquakes and 


23 


OUT INTO LIFE 


other disasters? Is it God who sends them? Will 
we have to wait until we know more than we do 
now to answer these questions? 
s. Does God, who is himself all-powerful, need your 
help in the world? xe 
6. Has any man ever made good in life without prepara- 
tion? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


7. Study the story Jesus told in Matthew 25. 14-30. 
Did the third servant get a square deal? What 
should we do with our opportunities? 

8. Take six headlines in your morning’s paper and from 
them illustrate six needs of the world. 

g. Chesterton says, “A man is known by the philosophy 
he keeps.’”’ What does this mean? Why is it so 
immensely important that a young man should 
have a clear idea about God and the world? Do 
a man’s beliefs make any difference in his life? 

to. Write out briefly why you believe in God. 


For REFERENCE 


L. P. Jacks, Religious Perplexities, Chapters I, II. 
H. C. King, Greatness and Simplicity of the Christian 
Faith, Chapters II, XII. 


24 


CHAPTER III 
A CALL TO LIFE-WORK 


THERE are obviously three main strands in a 
man’s life: his vocational life, his life in his com- 
munity, and his home life. 

The importance of life-work.—How can I be 
truly great in my life-work? is a question which 
sooner or later each of us must ask himself. If 
the number of hours spent at anything is a test 
of its importance, work is more essential than 
sleeping, eating, and everything else save breathing. 
From one half to two*thirds of one’s whole waking 
life is devoted to business or profession. 

If you were a South Sea Islander you would not 
need to give many days to worrying about life- 
work, for the tasks of every man in a savage tribe 
are practically the same—hunting, fishing, fight- 
ing. The more civilized men become, the more 
they specialize. One group is delegated to do the 
hunting, another the fishing, another the fighting. 
Once every man was his own medicine-man, for 
there were only a few healing herbs and incanta- 
tions to be learned and distinguished; but it would 
be sheer waste of time to-day, with the years of 
preparation involved, for every man to be his 
own physician. By division of what was once 
common labor have arisen all the arts, sciences, 
professions, and businesses; and to-day, if a young 
man desires to be useful in the world, he picks 
out some occupation in which he may perfect him- 
self, and in that capacity he serves his generation. 


25 


OUT INTO LIFE 


It goes almost without saying that some men 
are better fitted for certain tasks than others. 
What a loss it would have been to the world if 
Raphael had gone into agriculture instead of art, 
or if Milton had become a ‘‘mute inglorious”’ vicar, 
or if J. J. Hill had been prevented from building 
railroads! You can doubtless pick out a number 
of men at work in your community who would 
really do better in other positions—a natural 
salesman who now runs a lathe, a person “apt 
te teach”? now occupying a clerk’s stool, or some 
one of unusual organizing ability plying the solitary 
trade of selling books. Each man to his own bent! 

Do you know that on the average a young man 
changes his job three times in two years? In many 
cases this means nothing but unwise choosing. 
As a matter of fact, men often do not attempt to 
exercise their choice at all, but, rather, hunt a job 
and take the first one offered. You would have 
your own opinion of a young man who took for 
his wife the first young lady he met on the street, 
regardless of her character, health, mental equip- 
ment, and appearance, and yet, when you take 
the long view of your whole life, selecting an occu- 
pation is almost as momentous as selecting a wife. 
Take the money return alone and the difference 
between a life-work properly chosen and a job 
blindly accepted may mean, when the annual 
wages are totaled, millions of dollars. You would 
deem it a staggering misfortune to lose such an 
amount of money after you had earned it: do not 
lose it now, by failing to choose wisely! Aside 
from the money question, an unwise choice crip- 
ples a man’s ability to live well and help live well. 

26 


A CALL TO LIFE-WORK 


Boys without books on the subject and without 
friends to advise them are sometimes forced to 
try out a number of positions before they discover 
the direction of their own talents: Abraham Lincoln 
was by turns a farmer, lumberman, rail-splitter, 
deck-hand, teacher, postmaster, army captain, store- 
keeper, surveyor, lawyer. But you are not a youth 
in the backwoods, and with friendly counselors, 
ample literature, and your own imagination, you 
may make your own choice more quickly and more 
certainly. 

The choice of a life-work is a matter of fitting 
together two complementary objects—a vocation 
and yourself. The first question is, What are the 
various channels of usefulness which life offers me? 
The second is, What are my own qualifications? 
Am I designed by my Creator to be a doctor, 
lawyer, merchant—or what? The first question 
calls for telescopic study, the second, for micro- 
scopic: to make an intelligent choice a young man 
must survey the whole range of vocations pre- 
paratory to selecting one of them, and must also 
nicely scrutinize his own capabilities. 

Are all occupations equally Christian?—But is a 
Christian young man to regard all the vocations 
as possibilities? Are not some of them less holy 
than others? Is manufacturing, for instance, as 
decent and noble a profession as the ministry? 

It was once thought—do you think so?—that 
the call to professions offered by the church is 
different from all others, and more divine, because 
it comes with an irresistible attraction, which never 
wholly abates. Dwight L. Moody said of such 
an experience in his own life, ‘‘There God kindled 


27 


OUT INTO LIFE 


a fire in my soul that has never gone out.’ The 
prophet Ezekiel described the terror and splendor 
of his summons to the ministry: 


I saw a vision of God. . . . I saw a huge cloud, a mass 
of fire, in a brilliant sky. . . . Above it was what ap- 
peared to be a sapphire throne. Seated on it was one 
who resembled a man. . . . There was a bright light 


around him, like arainbow. It was the Lord made visible 
in his glory. When I saw him I fell upon my face, and 
I heard a voice speaking to me. . . . And he said o me: 
Son of man, I send you! ... 


When such a call comes to a man, it is as if his 
destiny were once for all made clear to him. 

There are definite calls to secular occupations. 
—It is not to ministers, prophets, and mission- 
aries alone, however, that such visions have come. 
There are few ministers who have had a call of 
the intensity of William Wordsworth’s. He felt an 
indescribable necessity upon him. ‘‘An inward 
compulsion came to him as one night after a party 
he returned home through the land of whose beauty 
he became ‘priest to us all.’”’ God chose: him to 
be a poet of nature. 

Abraham Lincoln had an imperious summons 
to a quite different field of labor. When a young 
man he sees ten or a dozen slaves shackled together 
with irons. He writes later of that experience: 
“That night was a continual torment to me.” 
From then on slavery is to him “‘a thing which has 
and continually exercises the power of making me 
miserable.’’ Combating the slavery evil became 
his calling. God chose him to be a reformer. 

28 


A CALL TO LIFE-WORK 


In view of such examples, can one maintain that 
it is only to the “‘church” vocations that strikingly 
definite calls come? God needs men all along the 
line of the world’s work and calls them accordingly. 

The less definite calls.—But are all of God’s 
calls more or less sudden? 

What makes a sudden call seem so overpowering? 
Is it not simply the surge of emotion which it 
creates in a man? And are these two to be identi- 
fied—the call itself and the accompanying emotion? 
The man to whom a highly emotional summons 
comes is usually emotional about everything. He 
is likely, for instance, to be much more excited 
than another in the same position, when he feels 
himself falling in love, or when he watches a drama. 
There are men of the more sensitive, highly strung 
natures and there are men of the more phlegmatic 
type. Is it reasonable to suppose that when God 
calls them their feelings will be stirred with equal 
intensity? 

Stripped of the emotional elements, is not a call 
simply a realization that God has made you capable 
of doing a particular work—that there is a real 
way in which you can pay back your debt to him— 
that he has shown you a means by which you, you 
specifically, can live and help live? 

Some calls may come almost entirely free from 
emotional surgings. It is a matter of cold fact 
that many of the most useful ministers and mis- 
sionaries have been undramatically led into their 
work by the mild process of their own logical 
thought. One missionary put his ideas on paper 
as follows: 

1. There is greater need abroad than at home 


29 


OUT INTO LIFE 


for college-trained men who can learn languages 
easily. 

2. I am college-trained and I learn languages 
easily. 

3. Therefore, God calls me to go to the foreign 
field. 

William Ellery Channing had great difficulty 
in his youth in deciding between medicine and the 
ministry; and, like many if not most of the preach- 
ers of to-day, he chose the latter profession as a 
result not of a peremptory vision but of sober 
inquiry as to where he would be most serviceable. 

Look thoroughly into the matter and you find 
that comparatively few calls are sudden and pas- 
sionate. They are usually gradual, cumulative, 
deepening into conviction. Your call is likely to 
be less like Ezekiel’s than like that of Samuel 
Chapman Armstrong. His biographer relates that 
at the end of the Civil War he found himself a 
young man with little to live on but his distinction 
as a soldier. He wanted a call somewhither, but 
no divine ecstasy seized him. His call came, how- 
ever, by the avenue of the common sense which 
God had given him for just such a purpose. He 
remembered that his boyhood in Hawaii in a mis- 
sionary home had given him a uniquely intimate 
acquaintance with one of the backward races; and 
during the war he had commanded a regiment of 
Negroes. Two ideas finally met in his mind: (1) 
the only future of the Negro race lay in education, 
and (2) he was singularly well fitted to take up 
such an enterprise. The result of this ‘‘call’? was 
the renowned Hampton Institute, which General 
Armstrong dedicated to God and to the liberation 


30 


A CALL TO LIFE-WORK 


from ignorance of a mighty people. He himself 
later confessed that he was “‘seemingly led.”’ 

“There is a fatal error in the attempt to stand- 
ardize the divine methods.” God will call you in 
the way that suits you best, more probably through 
your own observation and thought than by heavenly 
visions or voices. Carlyle’s words were spoken to 
you: ‘‘The latest Gospel in the world is, Know thy 
work and do it!’ The useful work which you can 
do well, you may depend upon it, is divinely your 
work. That for you is sacred, whether you are 
called to it with or without an emotional upheaval. 
If you will study your own abilities and the needs 
of the world, and so understand God when he 
does call, even if that call does not come suddenly, 
you will be amazed some day to discover that 
you also have been ‘‘seemingly led.” 

The only danger is that by refusing to meet 
God half way, you may miss his call and wreck 
his plans for your life. Keep your mind open to 
his leading! Remember that he is as likely to 
need you outside the church as inside, and that 
he is even more likely to call you through your own 
thought than by a sudden summons. While God’s 
part is to call, yours is to seek—to be willing to 
be called. Seek and you will find! 


For DIscussion 


1. Which man is the better fitted for life—the one who 
knows something about everything or the one who 
knows everything about something? 

2. If we divide human occupations into three classes, as 
having to do primarily with persons, things, or 
ideas, in which class would you put salesmanship? 


3 


Io. 


G. 


OUT INTO LIFE 


mining? railroading? journalism? education? the 
ministry ? 


. Is the post of office-boy as important as that of 


bank president? Is it as important in God’s sight? 


. Is a man ever called to an occupation he is not fitted 


for? 


. Mohammed was called to be a prophet and preach 


against the Christians. Was his a divine call? 


. Is a man ever called to an occupation he does not 


enjoy? What about Jesus and the cross? 


For FurRTHER STUDY 


. Read the account of the call of Isaiah in Isaiah 6. 


1-8. Was this a nightmare or a real experience? 
Which is the most important verse in the passage? 


. Are sudden emotional ‘‘calls’”’ dangerous for a man 


mentally? Talk it over with your physician. 


. Read the life of some successful man and describe 


how his call came. 

What various methods of procedure are you pur- 
suing to make certain that, when God is ready to 
call you, you will hear him? 


For REFERENCE 
W. Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapter X. 


CHAPTER IV 
AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD 


You are touched with pity when a single beggar 
reaches out his hand for bread, but in America 
to-day there are one hundred and ten million 
people who ask for it daily. And they will starve 
unless someone responds to their appeal. The 
chief men whose work it is to keep this population 
fed are the company of fifteen million farm workers. 

A typical agricultural problem.—How would you 
enjoy working out such a problem as once con- 
fronted Ellwood Cooper? In 1891 he and other 
horticulturists in California were faced with the 
loss of millions of dollars from the depredations 
of the ‘“‘black scale’? upon their orchards. Mr. 
Cooper conceived the idea of asking the Legis- 
lature to appropriate a sum of money “for the 
purpose of sending an expert to Australia and other 
adjacent countries to collect parasitic and pre- 
daceous insects.”” Mr. Cooper then made his 
ranch a great experiment station in which many 
species of imported beetles of the type commonly 
called ladybirds, known enemies of the scale, were 
tried out. It soon became evident that two species 
were of particular importance, and these were 
finally distributed by the thousands to different 
parts of the State. By this experiment and others 
of the same nature, Mr. Cooper and his fellow 
experimenters saved California’s basic industry. 

General problems.—Every farm manager has 


33 


OUT INTO LIFE 


similar problems. He must know how to exter- 
minate all sorts of insect pests and bacterial blights, 
and weeds as well. 

Chemicals are his great allies, if he understands 
them, for, whereas in the old days he had to adjust 
his crops to the peculiarities of the soil, he can 
now modify his soil to suit the desired crops. This 
calls for infinite experimentation. 

A useful agriculturist to-day must be constantly 
alive to his market. He will lose out if he grows 
crops which are not needed. 

The man who keeps animals has fascinating 
problems all his own. He must know the various 
stock breeds and the biological laws of breeding 
—laws which his grandfather believed were for- 
ever to remain beyond the ken of man. He must 
know the chemical composition of the feeds, so 
that he can give the most advantageous amounts 
and proportions for each of the various purposes 
for which his animals are kept. He must know © 
the preventives for the more serious animal diseases. 

If he is interested in dairying, the farmer often 
becomes a butter and cheese maker, and then all 
the problems of the manufacturer are opened to 
him. 

Farsighted farmers are working to form coopera- 
tive dairying and general farming associations, 
such as have made Denmark prosperous. By 
combining they can establish better market facil- 
ities; they can meet regularly for mutual improve- 
ment, studying general and technical problems of 
every sort, from farm bookkeeping to current 
world history. It is here that the man consecrated 
to being useful to his fellow man has a big chance. 


34 


AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD 


Farmers, like all professional men, have to learn 
how to plan their own time. There are no whistles 
or bells to mark the beginning of the day’s work 
or its close, and the year’s labor is so varied that 
it takes careful organization to eliminate con- 
gested days of excessive strain on the one hand, 
and on the other, periods of comparative idleness. 
Include his work of road-building and draining, 
and you perceive that the general farmer of to-day 
is something of a civil engineer, biologist, scientific 
experimenter, manufacturer, buyer and seller, book- 
keeper, mechanic, and chemist, not to say plain 
farmer also. Agriculture is in short a form of 
service in which a man can use all the brains he 
owns. 

Some of the benefits.—One young farmer, Ross 
M. Craig, says: 


What is the compensation? This is a question not 
readily answered to the satisfaction of the city man, 
who is largely governed in his sense of values by the 
dollar sign. First, I believe, comes the love of an out- 
door existence, and an inherent appreciation of God in 
nature. 

And there is another thing that appeals to all of us: 
for the farmer there is no limit to creative ability. 


Something to appreciate and something to create! 
—on a farm a man may find the two things needful 
for mental health. Farming also offers all the 
conditions requisite for physical health. 

One of the pleasant features of the occupation 
is its diversification. You must be at least as 
various as the seasons: there is “a time to plant, 
and a time to pluck up that which is planted.” 


35 


OUT UIN TOV: 


On the other hand, if you care to specialize, there 
are any number of departments which you may 
choose: orcharding, gardening, bee-keeping, poultry- 
raising—what you will. The work need never lack 
interest or variety. 

One of the appealing features of farming in this 
country is the opportunity it offers to a man of 
small means in reasonable time to acquire moderate 
financial independence. Now that the federal 
government makes long-time loans to deserving 
young men, the reserve of capital necessary to buy 
land and equipment and make improvements is 
available when it is most needed. Normally the 
man on the land betters his condition every year. 

There are special social advantages in an agri- 
cultural community. It is the ideal size and type 
for common enterprises. A delightful life may be 
built up around the church, the school, the grange, 
and even the cooperative store. Here, if your life 
is dedicated to helping others, you can make your 
power felt. Men who distinguish themselves in 
such community usefulness are soon called upon 
to assist in the greater work of the county and of 
the State. The old idea that because a man is a 
farmer he must needs have a backwoodsman’s 
mental equipment is simply untrue; with the net- 
work of steam and electric railroads, the rural 
postal facilities, and especially the automobile and 
telephone, the farmer may now be as well informed 
and as intimately connected with the rest of the 
world as any ordinary townsman. 

The greatest reward of life on a farm, aside from 
the satisfaction of knowing you are feeding and 
clothing the world, is perhaps the opportunity of 

36 


AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD 


building a home. A farmer’s wife can share his 
work to a unique degree; and upon the foundation 
of this intimacy and understanding a _ happy 
Christian home may be established. 

Work in the open air makes strong sons and 
daughters and trains them in a hundred useful 
ways. The farm has not, it is true, produced the 
number of healthy children one would expect from 
such ideal surroundings; but this is obviously due, 
not to the environment, but to the present ignor- 
ance of child nurture on the part of parents— 
another opportunity for those who know to share 
with those who know not! One Christian family 
in which child training is understood can bring 
health and happiness to all the other families in 
the community. 

Would I fit on a farm?—One can to a certain 
degree try himself out at farming in boyhood 
before taking it up as a life-work. If you live in 
the country, you can help on your own farm or 
at a neighbor’s; if in the city, you can doubtless 
get someone to give you a small plot of ground 
for summer use. There you can find out whether 
you take pleasure in keeping weeds down! If you 
want to know something of how you like the care 
of animals, get a pet. If your high school has 
courses in agriculture, then you have another 
chance to judge whether you would do well as a 
farmer. Do you find yourself, as a young farmer 
naturally would, wanting to take to the fields 
and woodlands; or do you enjoy inside and city 
pastimes more? Pick up some of the agricultural 
magazines in the library or elsewhere and see if 
they have an appeal. No test is infallible, but if 


37 


OW TINT O Gir 


you try in every way you can think of to discover 
your native leanings, you will not go far astray. 

The preparation needed.—Training is essential. 
If you do not desire any better crops than your 
great-grandfather had, you require no more than 
his training; indeed, with modern competition and 
deteriorated soil, you cannot without training do 
even as well as he did. Like all other sciences, 
farming shows some new discovery or improve- 
ment every day—a new chemical for the soil or 
a new way of applying an old one, a new method 
of planting, cultivating, or harvesting, a new machine 
which saves time and money, a new system for 
cooperative buying or marketing—a continuous 
advance. If you are to do your best—and God 
asks no less—you must be trained in the new 
processes. If you have grown up on a farm, you 
have a practical education which is more than 
valuable, but technical courses in agricultural 
schools will wonderfully increase your success. The 
State agricultural colleges cannot to-day meet the 
demand for farm managers, herdsmen, orchardmen, 
and other experts. If you simply cannot go to a 
technical school, keep close to the other educational 
agents—books, the county bureau, the agricultural 
gatherings, and the rest. You can doubtless save 
up for one of the shorter summer or winter courses 
offered by the nearest agricultural school. Knowl- 
edge is power. And the more power at your com- 
mand, the better you can live and help live. 

The fisheries and hunting.—Two hundred and 
twelve thousand men in the United States work 
to provide us fish for food. For every three of 
these men who actually fish there is one man in 


38 


AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD 


the industry ashore working in the canning factory 
or otherwise preparing the catch for market. 

There was probably a time in your own life, 
whether you lived on the seaboard, mountains, or 
plains, when you wanted to go to sea; but fishing 
is, in general, only for men who have been born 
or reared to it. It is a profession which offers 
adventure, and hardship, and a chance to develop 
endurance, courage, and strength. It is one way 
of living and helping live, but it is not a lands- 
man’s art. 

Hunting and trapping, ancient and useful arts 
as they are, in our civilization occupy the life of 
a comparatively small number of men. 

All the occupations which meet our need for 
food provide other necessities also: farming, for 
instance, gives us linen and cotton clothing; fish- 
ing gives us sponges and the other products of 
the ocean; hunting and trapping give us skins and 
furs. They are indeed, as they are often called, 
“basic occupations’; and certain it is that they 
give the men who enter them in a Christian spirit 
of service a basic satisfaction. 


For DIscussION 


1. Whom would you rather employ on your farm—a 
young man just out of an agricultural school, or 
an older man with long experience in practical 
farming but without technical training? 

2. Which of the farm specialties do you believe has the 
greatest future—stock raising, dairying, poultry- 
ing, truck gardening, or orcharding? 

3. Do you think farming tends to make a man religious, 
or not? 


39 


TO. 


OUT INTO. LIFE 


. Can one fairly well estimate the usefulness of an 


occupation by the money it pays? 


. Which is more useful in a farming community—the 


church or the school? 


. Can a man by keeping a vegetable garden in summer 


test whether he would enjoy farming as a life- 
work? Why? 


For FURTHER STUDY 


. Look over the parables that Jesus told as they are 


recorded in Matthew or Luke. What proportion 
of the subjects are taken from farm life? What 
conclusions do you draw? 


. Suppose you were a newcomer in a rather backward 


farming community: tell in detail how you would 
set about to form an association for mutual aid 
and education. 


. What program ought a church in a farming com- 


munity to have? Should every farmer belong to 
the church? For what reason? 

State a number of definite ways in which you, if 
you were to become a farmer, would intend to 
make your Christianity count. 


For REFERENCE 


F. J. Allen, A Guide to the Study of Occupations. Harvard 


University Press, 1921. This is a selected bibliography 


indispensable to vocational counselors. Students who 


desire to follow up the study of any occupation will 
find all the important reference material described in 
this Guide. The following notes on the four books to 
which most frequent reference is to be made in the 
following chapters are taken from it: 


“Boy Scouts of America, Be Prepared, for Merit Badge 


Examinations. New York, 1919-1920. 


A series of pamphlets issued by the Boy Scouts of 


40 


AGRICULTURE AND THE NEED FOR FOOD 


America in connection with the scheme of awarding 
merit badges to first class Scouts. Each pamphlet 
shows something of the nature and history of the occu- 
pation treated, its attractiveness, how to prepare for 
it, and its earnings. The treatment is well adapted to 
boys of the Scouting age, and useful for vocational 
guidance purposes. 

“Stella Stewart Center, The Worker and His Work: Read- 
ings in Present-Day Literature Presenting Some of 
the Activities by which Men and Women the World 
Over Make a Living. J. B. Lippincott Co., Phila- 
delphia, 1920. 

Selections of narrative, description, essay, and poetry, 
of interest to young people who are studying occupa- 
tions. 

“Frederick Mayor Giles and Imogene Kean Giles, Voca- 
tional Civics: A Study of Occupations as a Back- 
ground for the Consideration of a Life-Career. The 
Macmillan Company, New York, rgr1o9. 

This book, which is an outgrowth of experience in 
giving vocational counsel to young people, presents a 
detailed study of the leading groups of occupations. 
It discusses their nature, demands, rewards, and other 
vocational guidance features. It was designed for 
vocational counselors and life-career classes, and the 
vocational guidance material of the book is well treated. 


“E. B. Gowin, W. A. Wheatley, and John M. Brewer, 
Occupations: A textbook in vocational guidance. 
Ginn & Co., Boston, 1916. 

A detailed Brady of the most important vocations, with 
broad outlines of the more important divisions and 
summaries of positions and fields of work. It deals 
mainly with work open to the boy, but presents such 
essential facts and outlines of study as give it value 
for general use. One of the best books now available 
for high-school life-career classes. Well written, logical 


4I 


QUEEN LORE EAE 


in arrangement, and rich in vocational guidance mate- 
rial. (This has been completely revised by John M. 
Brewer and is published by the same house, 1923. The 
references in this book are to the revised edition.) 


The Vocational Guidance Magazine, the organ of the 
National Vocational Guidance Association, issued eight 
times a year, from October to May inclusive, should be 
part of the equipment of every teacher who takes seri- 
ously his responsibility in vocation guidance. It is 
published in Cambridge, Massachusetts, F. J. Allen, 
Editor. 


For Agriculture: 
Giles and Giles, pages 31-45. 
Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, Chapter IX. 
S. S. Center, pages 165-169, ‘““The Red Cow and Her 
Friends.” 


For Fishing: 
5S. S. Center, pages 306-310, ‘““The Salmon.” 


CHAPTER V 
LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING 


“YES, there is plenty of romance in our business,”’ 
says U. Morgan Davies, a young man in the logging 
industry in the Great Lakes region. 

Logging.—First there are the land surveys to 
be made. The amount and quality of the timber 
is thus estimated. This may mean long days on 
foot through trackless wastes. After the maps 
and descriptions are prepared, men with a com- 
plete knowledge of logging methods must go in 
and stake out locations for roads and railroads, 
and in general plan for and organize all the opera- 
tions. When, as is often the case, the population 
of a lumber camp is as large as that of a small 
town, the task of providing in advance for the 
multitudinous needs of the community is, to say 
the least, a bit of a problem. Each of the depart- 
ments of actual logging, felling and bucking, skid- 
ding and yarding, transportation, measurement, 
requires its experts. Logging on a large scale is 
really a special form of engineering. It is not all 
romance: it offers no end of hardship, and is quite 
beyond the power of men who are not robust. 

On the other hand, logging has its peculiar 
rewards. Men who have an invincible love of 
outdoor life will find in it unique satisfactions. 
In the larger companies there is a life-work for 
any man eager to be useful. Think of the innumer- 
able articles of wood we use—furniture, utensils, 


43 


OUT INTO LIFE 


paper, musical instruments, to mention but a few 
—all made available by the logger! Employment 
for reliable men is continuous, though advance- 
ment is never rapid at the beginning. 

The wages are good. Those for actual timber 
felling, which can be done only by unusually strong 
men, are high. Active young men who enjoy 
mechanics find a field in the South and far West 
where power logging is in vogue. ‘There the skid- 
ding machines need the constant attention of 
skilled operators. In all larger lumber operations 
the logs are transported on steam railroads. ‘The 
engineers and firemen receive a fairly high wage, 
but the hours are long. 

Logging offers a unique chance to be a mission- 
ary of good citizenship and happiness among back- 
ward men who live hard lives. Colonel Brice P. 
Disque was sent during the Great War to the 
lumber camps of the Northwest, then in a condi- 
tion of seething unrest. He found a state of mis- 
understanding between the operators and employers, 
aggravated by the wretched living conditions of 
the latter. His sincerity made him friends in both 
groups, and they put their problem in his hands. 
In a few weeks he had established decent working 
and living conditions and had brought about good 
feeling everywhere by the sheer force of his own 
Christian friendliness. What form of labor is more 
Christian than that of planting ideals of service 
and brotherliness in communities where the law 
of the jungle holds, of making it possible for men 
to grow from ignorance and dejection into self- 
control? 

The training required comes obviously in large 


44 


LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING 


part from the actual work of logging, but men who 
aspire to positions of largest usefulness must have 
theoretical knowledge of woods, wood-machinery, 
general engineering, and the economics used in 
the marketing of the lumber. Lumbering, as dis- 
tinguished from logging, however, is a manufac- 
turing problem. ‘The technical studies needed for 
logging can be acquired at an engineering school. 
By writing to the nearest such school you will be 
able to get the detailed information you individually 
need. 3 

It is best, however, to learn the life of the logging 
camp from personal observation. If you are then 
drawn toward it, it is perhaps the place where 
you can give your best and happiest service. Talk 
about the profession to all the logging men you 
know, read all the literature on logging you can 
get hold of, think about it, pray about it—and 
get the best training you can. 

Forestry.—The forester has no small share in 
the life of the world: no civilization without wood 
—no wood without forests—no forests without 
foresters to look after them. The forester’s task 
is well described by Captain S. T. Dana in a gov- 
ernment pamphlet: 


He must be able to identify different kinds of trees; 
to draw up a complete plan for protecting the forest 
from fire and to carry out the details involved in its 
execution; to control the attacks of destructive insects 
and fungous diseases; to handle the collection of seed 
and the production of young trees; to determine the rate 
at which trees are growing; to draw up a “‘working plan’’ 
providing in detail for the handling of the entire forest in 
such a way as to keep it continually productive; to run 


45 


OUT INTO LIFE 


compass and transit lines and make topographic maps. 
He must know the uses to which each tree can be put 
and the sites to which they are best adapted; how many 
grazing stock the range will support and how they should 
be handled; since most of the forests occur in undevel- 
oped regions, he must know how to open up undeveloped 
regions by building ranger and lookout stations and con- 
structing other permanent improvements. 


The Rewards.—The greatest pleasure offered by 
forestry is the chance to share in the life of the 
world: it is another way to live and help live. 

The initial salary for forest service is fairly high, 
and there is ample chance for promotion to those 
who deserve it. Great. wealth, however, cannot 
be amassed in this profession. 

Forestry requires a good physical constitution. 
Often the forester must be away from his home 
for days or weeks at a time, his bed and provisions 
on his back or on a pack animal, rain or shine, 
until his survey is made. On the other hand, it 
is this very closeness to God’s out-of-doors, the 
very ruggedness of the life, that appeals to men. 

A young man with a high-school education can 
qualify, with a further year’s training, as a forest 
ranger; but the man who is ambitious to be useful 
will desire the complete training of a school of 
forestry. The professional forester has charge of 
the larger phases of forest supervision. For this 
he must have general courses in botany, geology, 
organic chemistry, trigonometry, surveying, draw- 
ing, economics, French and German, and such 
special studies as silviculture and forest mensura- 
tion, valuation, management, and regulation. This 
means from four to six years of education after 

46 


LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING 


graduation from high school. Other things being 
equal, the best forester is the man with the best 
training. 

Mining.—The United States produce about two 
fifths of the pig iron of the entire globe. The im- 
portance of this and the other metal industries 
may be measured by imagining what would happen 
if by the magic of some playful wizard all the 
metal products in the world should vanish. Our 
houses would crumble to the ground, lofty sky- 
scrapers and humble cots alike; our ships would 
founder and break up; our machinery would evap- 
orate; our tools, even the commonest kinds, would 
be no more. In short, this is an iron age: our 
material civilization is built largely with iron and 
the metals. 

Coal is a factor in modern industrial life of twin 
importance with the metals. Since its discovery 
and the invention of the steam engine a little over 
a century ago a greater change has come over the 
face of the earth than all the previous forty cen- 
turies saw. If we live in iron times, we have fash- 
ioned them with the heat from coal-furnaces. 

The man who elects to be a mining engineer 
may be at ease regarding his public service: the 
whole manufacturing world looks to him. He 
makes available the fabrics out of which men are 
building the Woolworth Buildings, the radio instru- 
ments, and the other splendid things of the new age. 

Mining is not necessarily an occupation without 
pecuniary profit, either. It must always be to a 
certain extent a speculation, but the actual his- 
tory of properly conducted mines in America 
shows them to be one of the safest forms of invest- 


47 


OUT INTO LIFE 


ment for capital. Many of our wealthiest citizens, 
including Andrew Carnegie and J. D. Rockefeller, 
found their fortunes largely under the ground. 

Mining, of all the modern industries made possi- 
ble by mighty combinations of labor and capital, 
cries loudest for humane, intelligent, and practical 
men who will devise means to relieve the workers 
from what is in some cases little short of sheer 
misery. Men who are in charge of many of the 
larger mining concerns to-day are doing their 
utmost to this end. If you are determined not 
only to live but also to help live, this may be your 
destiny. The great Kyshtim mines in Russia had 
ceased paying dividends because of antiquated 
methods and poor labor. Herbert Hoover was 
called in. He proposed to scrap the entire plant 
and move the whole community of several thousand 
families to a site nearer the mines. His plan was 
to spend several million dollars to give every man 
and wife connected with the mines, then living 
like dogs, a decent house, to pay them real wages, 
and to provide them new equipment to work with. 
The owners let him make the experiment. In a 
few months the new spirit in the workers justified 
him. The owners were pleased with the money 
returns; but Hoover was pleased because, by a 
constructive act, he had made life more livable 
for thousands of people. 

A manager like Herbert Hoover has a unique 
vantage point from which to govern the welfare 
of his workers. How to do this in the most Chris- 
tian way, without harming any legitimate interest, 
is an immense problem—and a more immense 
opportunity! 

48 


LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING 


The expert mining engineer must know how 
to locate valuable mineral land, explore and test 
the deposits, plan the proper method of excavating, 
install the machinery, appliances, and power, direct 
the drilling, blasting, breaking, hauling, and _ hoist- 
ing, the drainage, the support of overhead rocks 
and earth, the securing of profitable ore-bearing 
rock, the ore dressing and milling, and the mechan- 
ical preparation of the ore. He is sometimes called 
far from the centers of population. In such places 
ingenuity to meet the problems of difficult trans- 
portation, insufficient labor, and sometimes unhealth- 
ful climatic conditions, is at high premium. 

If you have a bent for mathematics and science 
and are of a mechanical turn of mind, it is not 
unlikely that you would make a success in min- 
ing. 

But you will need no little preparation. Like 
all the technical professions, engineering requires 
long training. The mine operator must be skilled 
to his finger tips in mathematics, mechanics, 
physics, and other similar technical subjects. He 
must be a geologist, mineralogist, and chemist, 
and something of a civil, mechanical, and electrical 
engineer. He must be acquainted with the arts 
of metallurgy, ore-dressing, and milling. And with 
these as a background he should specialize in the 
kind of mining in which he intends to work, for 
the various products of the mine call for different 
processes. A young man cannot become a prac- 
tical engineer until he has served a _ practical 
apprenticeship. 

It is another chance to serve God by serving 
fellow men. 


49 


OUT INTO LIFE 


For DIscussiIon 


. Is it true that there is just so much money, and no 
more, to be made in a well-organized business, and 
that since this is divided between the owners (in 
profits) and the workers (in wages), so that the 
more there is given to one, the less remains for 
the other, we must expect a never-ending quarrel 
between the two for the lion’s share of the money? 
. Would it be better to take as one’s first job a com- 
paratively big position with a small logging or 
mining company or a comparatively small position 
with a big company? 

. Supposing you had both white men and Negroes 
working for you, would you give them equal priv- 
ileges? Even at the receptions, parties, or dances 
you might have? Would you try to keep them 
apart? together? 

. Which would you say has been the greater single 
cause of forest destruction in America, fires or 
wasteful methods of logging? 

. Which has the greater power to better the condition 
of the ignorant and often alien mine-worker to-day, 
the owners of the mine or the heads of the miners’ 
unions’ Is it possible to say? 

. Would it be better if the government bought the 
mines from the present owners and operated them 
at cost for the public benefit? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


. Read Jesus’ words in Luke 4. 18 and then write an 
imaginative sketch about a manager of a mine or 
logging camp who tried to live like Jesus. How 
did he treat his men? Was he a successful business 
man? 
. What other great use have forests besides producing 
wood? Why is Palestine, once a fertile country, 


50 


LOGGING, FORESTRY, MINING 


now much more arid? Why is there a much 
greater tendency to violent floods on our rivers 
to-day than formerly? 

9. Read the life of John Mitchell, or some other miner, 
forester, or logger, and point out in what definite 
instance he showed himself a Christian. 

10. Taking into consideration your own abilities and fail- 
ings, in which of the three vocations, logging, for- 
estry, or mining, do you think you could best live 
and help live? Specifically, why? 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 46-s0, for forestry and logging; 
pages 50-54, for mining. 

Boy Scouts, Forestry and Mining. 

5. S. Center, pages 131-140, ‘“The Riverman’’; pages 141- 

146, ‘“The Toll of Big Timber.”’ 

The quotations in this and following chapters from 
“government pamphlets” are from Opportunity Mono- 
graphs for disabled soldiers, sailors, and marines to aid 
them in choosing a vocation. They were prepared by 
the Federal Board for Vocational Education and issued 
in cooperation with the Office of the Surgeon General, 
War Department, and Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 
Navy Department, in 1918 and 1919. 


51 


CHAPTER VI 


MANUFACTURING, THE ROMANCE OF 
MAKING THINGS 


By making up raw materials into useful articles 
American manufacturers yearly add to the wealth 
of the world the value of more than ten billions 
of dollars. To-day we are dependent upon the 
manufacturer for more than can be enumerated: 
we are aroused in the morning by a manufactured 
alarm clock from sleep between manufactured 
sheets in a manufactured bed. We step out on a 
manufactured carpet, put on manufactured clothes 
—and find the work of our whole day made easier 
by the use of things manufactured. 

The inside of a factory.—The fact that the out- 
put of American industry has for the last years 
been increasing from five to ten times as fast as 
the number of establishments means that the 
establishments are growing larger and more highly 
organized. Each concern makes its own divisions 
of labor, as demanded by its own circumstances. 
Many to-day are operating under eight depart- 
ments: (1) finance, (2) purchase, (3) production, 
(4) sales, (5) advertising, (6) design, (7) research, 
and (8) industrial relations, as the chart on the 
opposite page indicates. 

The heads of these departments meet for fre- 
quent conference, discuss their problems, decide how 
to meet them, and then separate to carry out the 
plans decided upon. If, for instance, at their 


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OUT INTO LIFE 


conference, the sales manager reports a customer 
complaining that his last shipment was poorly 
crated, they turn to the production man, who, 
let us say, informs them that his packers are men- 
tally below par—and the industrial relations exec- 
utive is asked to find him better men, if he can. 
Each department, though distinct, is, through its 
manager, in constant cooperation with the others. 

The financial, purchase, sales, and advertising 
departments are so closely allied to the general 
business of finance and commerce that they will 
be more appropriately treated later. 

Production, design, and research.—The produc- 
tion department is the largest of all. In some 
small concerns it is the only one, including all the 
rest. The head is usually known as the superin- 
tendent. In a large plant he has under him divi- 
sion managers, each in charge of a building or a 
particular set of processes. Under them are the 
foremen, each of whom supervises a group of men 
engaged in the same type of work. Finally, there 
are the wage-earners, who do most of the manual 
labor. 

One of the foremen is the chief shipping clerk, 
in whose department the finished products are 
stored or shipped to buyers. 

The production superintendent who is alive to 
his task reads all the current literature on the 
subject of production, visits other plants, and in 
every way studies how each particular task in his 
department may be performed most economically 
and effectively. 

The engineer of design must know what designs 
are likely to appeal to customers; and he must 


54 


THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS 


know what can be done on the machines of the 
factory in order to make his designs practicable. 
The draughtsmen make working drawings of the 
designs. The pattern-makers shape their patterns 
from the working drawings. The _ tool-makers 
make the tools demanded and keep them in repair. 

Departments of research are conducted by 
manufacturers who realize the necessity of improv- 
ing their work. In manufactures where chemistry 
or physics is called into use, as in the rubber- 
goods and electrical companies, vast laboratories 
are maintained, for a new discovery in these fields, 
where discoveries are being made almost daily, 
may save millions of dollars. 

Industrial relations.—Since men began working 
together in factories there has been recurring 
trouble about how the profits should be shared. 
This is often called the problem of Capital versus 
Labor, as if there were an underlying conflict 
between employers and employees. Many of the 
larger and more forward-looking concerns have de- 
veloped a special department to handle these and 
all other questions involving the human factor. 

The responsibilities which fall to the head of 
this department—and his assistants—are set forth 
by Edward D. Jones, in a pamphlet published by 
the government of the United States, slightly para- 
phrased as follows: 


His primary functions are to hire shop employees, 
superintend transfers and discharges, assist in determin- 
ing rates of pay, study the causes of labor turnover and 
absenteeism and strive to reduce them, adjust grievances, 
and recommend changes in working conditions which will 
eliminate fatigue and accidents or improve the health 


55 


OUT INTO LIFE 


and spirit of the force. He analyzes the sources of labor 
supply and makes studies upon which job specifications, 
setting forth the qualifications required for each task, 
can be based. He often supervises the training of em- 
ployees by apprenticeship in vestibule or shop schools. 
His efforts may take any one of a variety of forms. In 
one factory a restaurant may be needed, in another, 
better dwelling houses. Local transportation may be a 
problem to solve. A recreational or thrift campaign may 
need his attention. In connection with the government 
of the shop, he has a hand in drawing up shop rules. He 
deduces the significance of complaints and the causes of 
discharge. He is in contact with shop committees, should 
such be formed; and is harmonizer and mutual interpreter 
in all collective bargaining negotiations, striving ever 
sincerely to reach a fair and permanent basis for loyal 
cooperation. 


The rewards of manufacturing.—The rewards of 
the manufacturer’s profession are obvious. There 
is joy simply in the making of things. When you 
were a boy you enjoyed taking clocks apart for 
the pleasure of putting them together again— 
doubtless minus a wheel or two! 

A greater joy than simply making things is 
making things well. The thrill that a manufacturer 
feels as he examines a fine piece of workmanship 
which has come out of his factory is known only 
by those who make things well. 


““. . . God be praised, 


Antonio Stradivari has an eye 
That winces at false work and loves the true.”’ 


To the delight of making things well the manu- 
facturer adds the pleasure of making things which 
are useful to his fellow men. If you were a successful 


56 


THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS 


producer of automobiles, would you derive no 
satisfaction from seeing hundreds of families enjoy- 
ing the open air in the machines your own brains 
and hands had put on the market? 

To the manufacturer is given also the joy of 
creating original things. The system of interchange- 
able parts which makes possible the convenient use 
of complicated machinery at a long distance from 
the place of manufacture is but one of thousands 
of inventions and adaptations for which the world 
is indebted to the men in American factories. 

The financial return from manufacturing is, in 
proportion to the training required, as large as in 
any department of labor. The advancement is, 
as one manufacturer puts it, ‘as rapid as a man’s 
brains will carry him.” 

To the man who loves organizing, the enormous 
modern manufacturing plant has an appeal which 
few other professions can offer. Many of the 
commonest products of American manufacture, such 
as the sewing machine, require the cooperation of 
no less than one thousand men, each with his own 
contribution to make to the finished product. 
Some one must coordinate these many processes into 
a single whole, constantly adjusting them to chang- 
ing conditions. Back of all the organization, as 
Berton Braley wrote, 


é 


. stands the Schemer, 
The Thinker who drives things through; 
Back of the job—the Dreamer 
Who’s making the dream come true!” 


But to the young man who is dedicated to living 
and helping live, there is a still broader avenue of 


of, 


OUT INTO LIFE 


satisfaction on the human side of manufacture. It 
is here that William C. Procter, maker of a widely 
used soap, Charles M. Cox, of Boston, whose motto 
was “Give your workmen what you want yourself,” 
and a host of the younger generation of manufac- 
turers have made their fame. Manufacture is 
to-day the point upon which a hundred problems 
converge. The man who can discover ways and 
means of reconciling the just claims of the too 
often hostile bodies, employers and employees, is 
nothing less than a savior of our whole society, 
for this is one of its weakest and sorest points. 

Perhaps it is your destiny to work out this prob- 
lem. Perhaps you will be able to dispose relations 
between your investors, your brain workers, and 
your hand workers better than any who have gone 
before you. Perhaps you will discover that the 
discontent of the men arises from a lack of the 
spirit of craftsmanship—for what pride in his work 
can that man have, for instance, who all day long 
pulls a lever which eternally stamps out the same 
pattern? Perhaps you will find the worker un- 
happy because he is treated too much like a child, 
and that there is fairness in his demand to share 
in the control of his own working conditions, if 
not in the management of the factory as a whole. 
The whole subject is still in the stage of experi- 
mentation—awaiting your coming. 

In his church and his community a manufacturer, 
if he is the right sort, wields a mighty influence. 
Many New England towns have derived their 
spirit from their leading manufacturing family: 
where that family has been wide awake religiously 
and socially, the town has become wide awake; 

58 


THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS 


where the family has been indifferent, an indifferent 
town has grown up. 

The training.—The designer, draftsman, pattern- 
maker, workman in the main production depart- 
ments, tool-maker, and experimenter all need cer- 
tain technical training. This is often to be secured 
in the factory itself. 

To-day there are many apprentice schools where 
men may improve themselves after working hours 
or, by special arrangement, during certain hours 
of the working day, still retaining their positions 
in the shops. 

But if you are to reach a position of leader- 
ship, it goes without saying that the best way to 
prepare is through a course in a technical college. 
Your State university may offer the needed sub- 
jects. If not, there are other excellent schools 
where you may learn all that is known to date in 
your chosen line. Your salary for the first year 
after leaving the school may not appear much 
larger than that of your untrained contemporary, 
but ten years will show the superiority of the 
technical education. 

For the human side of manufacturing the train- 
ing is differently acquired. A number of industrial 
relations executives have agreed that the five 
principal factors in their work are related somewhat 
as follows: 


“Character, 35 per cent important 
General industrial experience, Svar | ak « 
Executive experience, Pernt Ten és 
Shop experience, pe vaso ‘ 
Experience with organized so- 

cial movements, Bae fs tae ey 


59 


OUT INTO LIFE 


If the passing mark for any kind of success is 
seventy per cent, it is manifest that a man lacking 
the first item is doomed to failure. No man who 
is not a thoroughgoing Christian, of deep sympathy 
and absolutely impartial judgment, can hope to 
succeed as a mediator between groups of men. 
And training in character can be had without 
going to a school or opening a book: it is the gradual 
acquisition of every man who steadfastly lives and 
helps live. 


For DIscussiIon 


. Formerly craftsmen took pride in doing their work 
well, and so got joy out of it: is there any chance 
for this in the standardized labor of a modern 
factory? 

. Who should have the power to “hire and fire’ work- 
men? The personnel manager? The foreman? 
Should a man’s shopmates have something to say 
in the matter? 

3. How would you debate the question: ‘Resolved, That 
the great combinations of manufacturing corpora- 
tions, such as ‘U. S. Steel,’ are beneficial to the 
country’’? . 

4. Supposing you were a foreman in a weaving mill and 
knew that the management was selling as all wool, 
cloth that had cotton in it, what would you do? 
Protest? Leave? Wait till you reached a position 
of more authority? 

5. Should the problem of capital and labor be discussed 
in church? 

6. Do you think it is Christian to push for ‘‘democracy 

in industry” wherein every worker in the industry 

will have a chance to elect the officers, from fore- 
men to president, just as in a community every 
60 


eH 


to 


THE ROMANCE OF MAKING THINGS 


adult to-day has a chance to vote for mayor and 
petty officers? 


For FurtTHER STUDY 


7. There are at least four manufacturers mentioned in 
the book of the Acts—two tentmakers, a silver- 
smith, and a tanner. What are the stories con- 
nected with them? 

8. Supposing you were a man of wealth who desired to 
begin manufacturing threshing-machines, in what 
part of the country would you decide to locate 
your mills, taking into consideration the raw ma- 
terials, the market, the transportation, the power 
facilities, the climate, and the available labor? 

9g. In a shoe factory, what per cent of the earnings 
ought in general to go into wages and salaries? 
into profit on the money invested? back into the 
business? Talk this over with some manufacturer. 

10. Read the life of some manufacturer, such as Cyrus 
McCormick, and find out what motives led him 
into the vocation. What most attracts you about 
manufacturing? 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 87-107. 
Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 150-167. 
S. S. Center, pages 178-191, ‘“The Open Hearth.” 


61 


CHAPTER VII 
BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 


IF you desired to build a home for yourself, you 
would doubtless begin by applying to an architect 
to advise you. As a man trained to plan in advance 
for every detail of the construction, he should be 
able to tell you anything about house-building you 
want to know. 

When, following your suggestions, he had made 
his designs for your house, he would advertise 
among the various firms of building contractors 
for bids upon the construction; and the firm offer- 
ing to build for the lowest price, using the materials 
and putting in the workmanship you ask for, would, 
if there were no reason for refusing them, be awarded 
the contract. 

The contractor.—The contractor’s business is the 
actual building. He must know the building 
trades from A to Z and be able to compute to a 
nicety the probable cost of the material and labor 
required. He must be a skillful buyer, know where 
to find labor, and in general have good business 
instincts. 

If the firm of contractors is one of any size, for 
every job accepted they select to represent them a 
superintendent of construction. Out of the archi- 
tect’s paper plan this man must conjure the real 
building. He has under him such subcontractors as 
are needed—carpenter, mason, plumber, electrician, 
or others. To touch the imagination of all these 

62 


BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 


workers and their assistants with a vision of the 
whole completed work, to give them the enthusiasm 
which will weld them into a working organization, 
to keep each man cheerful and self-respecting, is 
his work. 

The superintendent of construction is often a 
master carpenter or mason who has advanced him- 
self to the higher position, coming to it by a path 
paved with books and hard work. 

He must be honest, for he has the reputation 
as well as the funds of his company in his hands. 
He must have continual control of his temper, 
even under the most provoking circumstances. 
That combination of tact and firmness must be 
his which is necessary to reconcile the demands of 
the architect and owner on the one side and those 
of his foremen on the other. His position, like all 
others which involve man-to-man relations, requires 
the qualities of straight thinking, sympathy, and 
integrity. It is just at this point that a man’s 
religion comes to his assistance. 

The joys of building, of being useful, of saving 
enough money to keep one’s family in comparative 
abundance, and of standing for the principles of 
Christ, often when there are heavy bribes not to 
do so—these belong to the contractor and his 
superintendent. 

The mason.—Once the cellar of your house is 
excavated, the foreman-mason and his corps of 
workers would be called for. They build the founda- 
tions, walls, abutments, and chimneys, according 
to the architect’s plans. Those who have tried 
brick- or stone-laying know that it takes skill 
to keep the lines straight even in the simplest job, 


OUT INTO LIFE 


and that in such work as mounting an arch, or 
stone-facing the iron framework of a sky-scraper, 
only an old hand can make the work perfect. In- 
side plastering is not learned in an hour, either. 

Often the main contractor lets the entire mason 
work on a building to another man, who thus 
becomes a subcontractor. This man may be his 
own foreman, hire his own men, and give personal 
attention to the job, or, if his business is large, 
employ a foreman. The foreman must be able not 
only to read working drawings and teach his men 
how to read them and have the general technique 
of masonry at his finger-tips, but he must be able 
to work with men and keep them working with 
him. He must be as conversant with their view- 
point as with that of his employer. He must be 
able judicially to weigh any situation and make 
an impartial decision. He too needs the mind of 
Christ. 

Masonry is largely an open-air occupation, afford- 
ing one well-rounded physical fitness. Though in 
most years there are periods when even the most 
expert mason is out of work, yet his annual wage, 
if expenses are not unduly heavy, gives him a 
comfortable home. If he is sufficiently ambitious, 
willing to study, and keen in observation, he can 
go the road which leads from subcontracting to 
general contracting, and in instances even to 
architecture. | 

There are two ways for a young man to learn 
the trade. After the high-school course is com- 
pleted he may either enter a trade school or hire 
out to a master mason as apprentice. Apprentice- 
ship training has come to be recognized in many 

64 


BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 


centers as one of the most important functions of 
a building contract. The master-and-man relation 
is one of solemn responsibility. 

If you have enjoyed your courses in mathematics 
and drawing, and if you like to work with tools, 
perhaps masonry is the means whereby you may 
best live and help live. And if you are to make 
good, the perseverance, the desire to do things 
well, the wish to be of service, those very qualities 
which you find in Christ will be in you your strong- 
est aids. 

The carpenter.—The carpentry in the house 
you are to build would doubtless be handled by 
another subcontractor. In a frame dwelling house 
the carpentry is the main part of the construction, 
since the entire skeleton—not to mention the doors, 
windows, roof, and floor—is of wood. 

Like masonry, carpentry may lead, after several 
years, to the larger business of contracting. If 
a young man has the necessary artistic gifts, and 
is able to find time and money for further study, 
there is nothing to prevent him from making his 
way into architecture, one of the best paid of the 
professions. 

The training needed for carpentry is also gained 
by schooling or apprenticeship, and the same 
traits of Christian manliness which make for success 
and standing in the other crafts are demanded here. 

The plumber.—In any house you build plumbing 
would be another chief consideration. This work 
is also let by subcontract to a man or firm. The 
plumber—to use the title in its widest sense— 
must be an expert in heating, ventilation, and 
sanitation. He must obviously be able to follow 

05 


OUT INTO LIFE 


plans and specifications correctly, put in the proper 
order for materials, and, in general, advise the 
contractor, architect, or owner regarding plumbing 
problems. His work calls for a certain inventive- 
ness to solve the perplexities each new construction 
presents. 

Plumbing has grown from the small lead-workers’ 
trade of one hundred years ago to an occupation 
by which more than a hundred thousand men earn 
their living to-day; and with the increase in our 
wealth and in our skill as builders, the profession of 
plumbing is bound to be lifted to an even higher 
level. It is on the whole healthful. To an alert 
man of mechanical talent it offers the fascination 
of invention. There is steady employment in it for 
the reliable. There is fair financial remuneration. 
Best of all, there is opportunity for advancement. 
Many plumbers have become contractors, and a 
few, who have been able and young enough to 
give themselves the advantages of study, have risen 
to the rank of sanitary engineers, and as such have 
become authorities on water supplies, sewerage sys- 
tems, and the kindred problems of cities, towns, 
and lateen private enterprises. 

Plumbing has a disagreeable association to most 
of us, to whom it means cleaning stopped-up drain- 
pipes. There are, however, such distasteful tasks 
in literally all occupations, and it is a source of 
no small satisfaction to a man of sterner stuff to 
be able to do these unpleasant though necessary 
jobs from which weaker natures shrink. Away 
with lily-white Christianity! 

Plumbing is learned in trade schools and by 
apprenticeship. If you have had a liking for your 

66 


BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 


courses in geometry, drawing, and science, and 
enjoy doing the smaller repairs in the piping at 
home, possibly you would find in plumbing a way 
of living and helping live. 

The electrician.—The electrician is in almost as 
general demand as the plumber. He also would 
be a subcontractor for the building of your house. 

Like all contractors he must on the one hand be 
something of a business man and an organizer, and 
on the other know the mechanics of his trade. 
He and his men install the wiring for the bells, 
lights, motors, and other electrical appliances. He 
must be able, if the plans call for it, to put in a 
complete power plant. He must be familiar with 
the rules of the fire underwriters which specify 
conditions under which certain types of wiring may 
be used. The more theoretical knowledge of elec- 
trical currents he possesses, the higher he can go 
in his business; and if he can by hook or crook 
get sufficient book-preparation, the profession of 
electrical engineering stands open to him. 

Possibly your courses in electricity and mag- 
netism have already given you a hint of your own 
inclinations. Electricity may have been your hobby 
since childhood. A few months as a helper to an 
electrical contractor may assist you in your de- 
cision. If you do decide to go into this line, get 
all the training you can afford—in a trade school 
or elsewhere. The trade of practical electrician 
is useful, healthy, and tolerably well paid. 

God called Thomas A. Edison to this profession, 
and it has been the means through which he has 
done more than one service to his race. Perhaps 
God will call you to do a like work. 


67 


OUT INTO LIFE 


The structural iron worker.—As we live in an 
age of steel, no list of men engaged in building is 
complete without mention of the structural iron 
worker. With his engine he lifts the ponderous 
steel girders, joists, and beams to their place, and 
with his riveter he makes them fast. You prob- 
ably will not select this as your own occupation, 
but it has its peculiar satisfactions to level-headed 
men of mechanical bent who are sober, quick- 
thinking, and cautious. The foreman in such work 
needs all the attributes of Christian leadership 
called for in any other foreman. 

The painter and decorator.—After the others have 
finished their labor on your home, the painter and 
decorator will begin. Painting and decorating, 
although they seem to require a high degree of 
taste, are often the lowest paid of the building 
trades. There is no reason, however, why young 
men who unite in themselves a trained artistic 
sense and business brains may not find a real field 
for their mental gifts in painting and decorating. 
Whistler and other artists have become famous 
through their interior decorations. 

The unions.—In many parts of the country the 
building trades are thoroughly unionized, and you 
cannot go far without being a member. Some 
unions, being under ignorant leadership, are a 
hindrance to an ambitious man. One man writes 
from Chicago: “In this region the unions make it 
difficult for new men to get into some of the trades 
—as lathers, for instance—to keep a shortage, the 
contractors say. The despotism is complete—and 
violent.”” This is not true of all unions, however, 
and, in general, the best way to better conditions 

68 


BUILDING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 


in a trade is to join the union and help improve it 
from the inside. This requires independent think- 
ing and courage to express that thinking in words. 
It requires, in a word, intelligent Christianity. 


For Discussion 


1. Which calls for more ingenuity, masonry, carpentry, 
plumbing, or electric wiring? 

2. If you were a member of a union which had called a 
strike, ought you to leave work, if you yourself, 
believing the strike unjustified, had voted against 
it? if your family was dependent on you for daily 
bread? 

3. Americans have the right of keeping undesirable peo- 
ple out of the country: do members of unions have 
a right to keep non-union workers out of the 
trades? 

4. Some employers refuse to employ men who are mem- 
bers of unions. Is this right? 

5. Will the increasing use of iron and steel in building 
injure the carpenter’s trade? 

6. Painting, owing to the danger of lead-poisoning, has 
been a dangerous business. Why, then, has it not 
paid better wages? 


For FurtTHER STUDY 


7. Nehemiah was the contractor who rebuilt the walls 
of Jerusalem. Read chapters 2, 4, and 6 of his 
book. Why did his laborers do their work so well? 
Did their religion have anything to do with it? 
Did Nehemiah’s religion make him an abler leader? 
How? 

8. Write to the nearest trade school for a description of 
the courses offered, and also find out from a neigh- 
boring mason, carpenter, or plumber what he 
would teach an apprentice. Then compare the 

69 


QUT INTO Liki 


apprenticeship with the corresponding course in 
the school: which is the better training? 

9. We say that Christianity is a practical help in daily 
work. In what ways'—describe at least three. 

10. Which would you rather be, a mason, carpenter, 
plumber, electrician, structural iron worker, or 
painter and decorator? Talk the matter over 
with the men successful in these lines in your own 
neighborhood. 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 109~120. 
Gowin, Wheatley and Brewer, Chapter XII. 





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CHAPTER VIII 


MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD 
TRANSPORTATION 


WHEN a man in the United States travels by 
train, one of fifty-five thousand passenger cars 
carries him; and if it is a consignment of goods 
he wishes to send somewhere, one of almost two 
million and a half freight cars will serve him. For 
his convenience the railway companies have laid 
a network of tracks which, if laid in a straight 
line, could reach to the moon and more than half 
way back again. 

The operating department of a steam railroad.— 
The chart on the opposite page, though no two 
railroads are managed exactly alike, shows the 
general type of organization according to which 
most roads are administered. Only the traffic and 
operating departments are indicated in detail—or 
treated elsewhere in this chapter—since they are the 
only ones peculiar to a transportation company. 
The real estate, legal, mechanical, purchasing, 
engineering, and financial departments, though 
indicated on the chart only by the titles of their 
chief executives, are also highly organized. 

The head of the operating department is the 
general manager. His vast responsibilities are 
delegated to several subdepartments. 

The chief of police, his inspectors, and captains 
protect the company’s men and property from 
unauthorized practices of every character. 


71 


OUT INTO LIFE 


The supervisor of wage schedules is in close 
touch with the work the employees do, and sees 
to it that their wages accord with their useful- 
ness. 

The statistician gathers data for the general 
manager. 

The supervisor of safety and examinations seeks 
by circulars and personal conferences to keep the 
public and the employees trained to ‘‘safety-first”’ 
habits, and conducts investigations of the causes of 
major accidents and the methods of avoiding them. 

The general mechanical superintendent is in 
charge of one of the most important subdepart- 
ments. Under him there are general shop superin- 
tendents and mechanical superintendents. The 
latter are assisted by the master mechanics, who 
in turn have under them the locomotive engineers 
and firemen. The engineer’s duties are very exact- 
ing. He must recognize the color and position of 
signals instantly. He must know his engine and 
constantly watch its running condition. Under the 
master mechanics also are the general foremen, 
the road foremen, who give most of their time 
to riding and examining engines which .are not 
steaming or pulling properly, and the shop fore- 
men, who have charge of repairing. 

The superintendent of dining cars is another 
official who reports to the general manager. 

The contract agent has charge of letting con- 
tracts to use the stations and trains for adver- 
tising or other outside business purposes. 

A special assistant to the general manager receives 
all complaints and suggestions regarding the service 
at the various stations. With him works the agent 


72 


MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD 


who looks up the claims presented for lost or dam- 
aged freight. 

The most important subdepartment is under the 
direct supervision of the general manager, who is 
assisted by general superintendents. The entire 
railroad is divided geographically into units called 
divisions, each generally making half a day’s run 
for a train crew. In charge of each one of these, 
and under the general superintendents, is a division 
superintendent. Assisting every division superin- 
tendent are trainmasters, who supervise the con- 
ductors and brakemen in a given area, and train 
dispatchers, who control the moving of freight and 
passengers. The passenger conductor collects fares 
and is responsible for his train and its passengers. 
The freight conductor directs the picking up and 
setting out of cars, carries the waybills for the 
freight on his train, and, like the passenger con- 
ductor, has general charge of his train. The station 
agent takes orders from both the trainmaster and 
the dispatcher. Whether he is the only man in a 
village station or the head of a great city station, 
with a large salary, he must understand the business 
of his road—traffic rules and rates, ticket selling, 
freight billing, and railway bookkeeping. Through 
him most of us come closest in touch with the 
railroad, and his make-up and manner will win 
or lose business for his company. 

The engineer of maintenance of way and his 
assistants keep the roadway in good condition. 

The signal engineer does the same for the signal 
system. 

The general superintendent of electric communi- 
cation and transmission with a large corps of men 


73 


OUT INTO LIFE 


under him keeps the electrical equipment in work- 
ing order. 

The electrical engineer is a special adviser to the 
general manager. 

The traffic department.—The traffic department 
of a typical road is outlined on the chart. The 
titles of the officials indicate the various spheres 
of their authority. 

Freight pays a company three times as much as 
the passengers and requires a horde of workers. 
A local freight agent must have strength enough 
to load and unload cars, and brains enough to 
handle office records and waybills. He, like all 
railroad men, must also know how to work with 
others. 

Competition between railroads is so intense that 
men are employed to seek out and contract for 
business. In the freight department this is done 
largely by personal interview with the shipping 
heads of large mining, manufacturing, or agricul- 
tural concerns. For passengers, all the common 
mediums of publicity—magazines, newspapers, fold- 
ers, and roadside and street displays—are utilized. 

Would you fit?—There may be work for you 
next summer in your local station in the ticket 
office, baggage room, or freight sheds, where you 
might at least imbibe the atmosphere of railroading. 
Such an experience might help you estimate your 
own aptitude for the business as a life-work. 

The man who is likely to be a success in rail- 
roading is the one who possesses the characteristics 
which gave Andrew Carnegie his advancement. He 
had come to America with no capital save brains, 
pluck, and honesty; had become a telegraph mes- 


74 


MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD 


senger; had picked up telegraphy while waiting for 
messages; had learned to receive by ear while others 
used the paper slip; and had mastered the duties 
of a train dispatcher while sending the messages of 
his superior. When his chief’s arrival at the office 
was delayed one morning and the division was 
in confusion, he muttered to himself, he afterward 
reported, ‘‘Death or Westminster Abbey!” and sent 
out the orders in the dispatcher’s name. It proved 
to be Westminster Abbey for the little white-haired 
Scot, and he went on through an assistantship 
at eighteen to a full division superintendency at 
twenty-four. And so he continued, on and on. 

Carnegie had a willingness to obey constituted 
authority. A railroad employs such an army of 
men that it can be operated successfully only if 
each individual adheres to the discipline of the whole. 
That man is most useful who does his own work 
faithfully, open-mindedly receiving his orders from 
his superiors, and giving orders to his assistants in 
accordance with the regulations. 

Carnegie had organizing ability—a prime requi- 
site, since any railroad, even the smallest, is a 
highly complicated organization. The companies all 
have room at the top for men who, on the one 
hand, no matter how many other men are involved, 
can keep in view the end they are together work- 
ing to achieve, and, on the other hand, have the 
analytical gift of separating a task into its natural 
parts and assigning each to the individual best 
adapted to it. 

Carnegie was also a good executive. And there 
is need for such—for men who can carry ideas into 
effect—who can get their own work done, and see 


75 


OUT INTO LIFE 


that the work of the employees in their depart- 
ments gets done too. Upon men who will not 
abuse it, immense and thrilling power is conferred 
by the railroads. 

This is one point where the gospel of Christ 
proves its worth. The thoughtless, unsympathetic, 
vindictive man cannot in the nature of the case 
win others to work with him as does that man who 
believes that under God all men are brothers and 
as such are entitled to opportunity, encouragement, 
and forbearance. 

When a president of one of our large railroad 
systems was asked for the principles of success, 
he replied, ‘‘Hard work, honesty, sincerity, good 
character, and good habits.” He might have said 
simply, ‘Good character,” for this includes the 
rest—and the foundation of good character, as a 
workman named Paul suggested many centuries 
ago, is a first-hand knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

The training for the technical part of railroading 
is to be had without unusual difficulty. The way 
of apprenticeship is open; and certain city boards 
of education, Young Men’s Christian Associations, 
and railroad companies themselves provide instruc- 
tion. It is not so easy to get the needed training 
in character, though the school where it is taught 
is not far from any one of us, and the courses, 
though brief, are numerous—our own day-by-day 
moral decisions. 

The operating department is unionized through- 
out; and collective bargaining, by which wages and 
hours of work are set by conferences between 
representatives of the unions and representatives 
of the management, is the rule. If you applied 


76 


MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD 


for a regular position as fireman, say, on the ordinary 
road, you could not get the job if you were not a 
union man. No one else would work with you. 

Seniority promotion prevails to-day because the 
unions have forced it. The oldest fireman in service 
is first to be made engineer, and the oldest engineer 
is assigned the best run. This method is obviously 
inferior to a system of promotion for good conduct 
and efficiency, but (say the unions) before the 
seniority regulation, promotions were made simply 
through favoritism, and that was worse yet. 

The unions in their way are attempting to solve 
our gravest national problem, the relation between 
those who employ and those who are employed. 
Warren S. Stone, grand chief of the Brotherhood of 
Locomotive Engineers, is a member of a church, 
and a straightforward, man-to-man Christian. Who 
can compute the benefit bestowed upon the world 
by a man of such a character in such an office? 
Perhaps the chair of chief of one of the Brother- 
hoods is awaiting you. Who knows? What an 
influence for Christ you could exert from that 
position! 

Water transportation.—A steamship line is, in 
general, organized like a railroad. Some depart- 
ments are larger, others smaller, than in land 
transportation. 

The handful of men constituting a train crew 
becomes, for instance, the ‘‘ship’s company”’ of a 
great liner. The captain has general charge. His 
first mate supervises the routine work. The second 
mate is the navigator. The chief engineer and his 
assistants care for the machinery. The boatswain 
has active charge of the deck crew. The steward 


7h 


OUT INTO LIFE 


is responsible for the food, heat, ventilation, and 
sleeping quarters. 

The sea is God’s and he made it—and he has 
imbued it with a romantic attraction which some 
men find irresistible. It has called, as Tennyson 
knew, to such men as 


“Ever with a frolic welcome took 
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 
Free hearts, free foreheads . 

Strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield 


1??? 


For DIscussIon 


1. Can you determine the place of any species in the 
scale of life by the radius of its activity? Is the 
bird, for instance, a higher form than the reptile 
because it can cover more ground? And is man 
higher than either? Any exceptions? 

2. Ought the national government to own and operate 
the railroads? 

3. Of all the varieties of work on the railroad, what do 
you consider the most dangerous? Ought a rail- 
road to be compelled to insure its employees? 

4. Would you rather be a worker in a nonunion com- 
pany and have more independence or be in a 
unionized company and have more pay? Is this a 
fair question? Why? 

5. Which is most important, the transportation of peo- 
ple, things, or ideas? 

6. Who is the more useful man, the one who can do 
three men’s work, or the one who can keep three 
men at work? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


7. How did people travel in Bible times? Give instances. 
Write a brief history of land transportation from 


78 


MAKING THE NATION A NEIGHBORHOOD 


the taming of the horse to the taming of steam and 
electricity. 

8. Make a chart of organization under which an electric 
street railway company could economically oper- 
ate. 

9. Do the same for a steamship line. 

ro. Great rewards come to men who devote themselves to 
railroading. Which would appeal most to you? 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 59-80. 

Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, Chapter XIII. 

Boy Scouts, Seamanship. 

Rudyard Kipling, The Ship that Found Herself and .007 
in The Day’s Work. 


79 


CHAPTER IX 


THE SERVICE PERFORMED BY MACHINIST 
AND ARTISAN 


WERE you a manufacturer or builder, you could 
not do business without calling in the help of 
machinists and artisans. We use the term “arti- 
sans’ in its broadest sense, as meaning men skilled 
in some mechanic art. ‘The machinists are those 
artisans whose special business it is to construct 
and repair machines and their parts. 

Machinists.—The range of a machinist’s work is 
shown by the number and kind of machines he 
uses: lathes for turning, millers for cutting down 
surfaces, planers for smoothing them, boring ma- 
chines and drills for making holes through thick and 
thin metals, grinders for polishing or sharpening, 
bolt and nut machines, screw machines, broaching 
machines, cutting-off saws, profiling machines, chas- 
ing and engraving machines, rifling machines, and 
a score of others, and all of them in various forms 
and sizes. With them the machinist can produce 
from properly molded parts anything from a nut 
to a locomotive engine. If he is to handle heavy 
objects, he is provided with a hoist or crane. 

The machinist usually works inside, often in a 
room full of machinery. He must take reason- 
able precaution against being struck by unpro- 
tected belts, gears, and shafts. 

A skilled general machinist who has the ability 
to direct men is in line for promotion to the posi- 


80 


SERVICE BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN 


tion of foreman. If he can also figure costs and 
devise economies in production, he is fitted for a 
higher administrative office. It is the old story 
over again: a man with training can advance 
higher and make himself more useful in the world 
than he could have done without it. With the 
specialization of machine-work in industry to-day, 
the old system of training by general apprentice- 
ship is becoming less practicable. In many manu- 
facturing cities there are good part-time schools 
which permit a combination of instruction in 
theory and actual practice in the shop, with a 
small wage besides. Certain cities maintain full- 
time schools where a young man may acquire a 
general experience with machinery before he enters 
any shop. 

With the growing electrical industries, a new 
kind of machinist is demanded—the man who can 
make electrical machines, such as generators, switch- 
boards, and transformers. Training courses of 
great value are provided by the larger companies 
for their employees in which both theoretical and 
practical instruction is given. A high-school course 
or the equivalent is an absolute essential. Ma- 
chinists need Hiram Golf’s religion. 

Molders and sheet-metal workers.—Allied to the 
machinist’s craft are molding and _ sheet-metal 
working. The molder’s kingdom is the foundry. 
It is one of the most interesting of places. In its 
simplest form molding is the process of pouring 
molten metal, pure or alloyed, into a mold formed 
by a pattern in sand or loam. Making the pattern 
is the task of another craftsman who works in 
wood. When a part is to be subjected to hard 

81 


OUT INTO LIFE 


usage, forging and hammering rather than casting 
may be the process used to shape it. Drop forgings 
are made with power hammers and dies. Large 
molds are made on the floor with shovels and 
various hand tools. This is heavy labor. Bench 
and machine molding involve no excessive physical 
strain. 

Promotion comes, here as elsewhere, to those 
who are willing to study more than is prescribed 
for them. There is advancement for those who 
have some knowledge of metallurgy, who can cal- 
culate costs, and who can govern men. 


The sheet-metal worker is the survival in modern in- 
dustry of the village tinsmith. Workers at the trade are 
employed mainly at cutting out shapes or patterns, bend- 
ing and forming these shapes on machines or with hand 
tools and assembling the parts by hand. Edges are fas- 
tened together by riveting, soldering, or by lock seams. 


So Eugene C. Graham describes the work in a 
government pamphlet. The men in a job shop 
are called upon both to make sheet-metal parts 
and to install them where they are to be used. 
Their work is therefore both inside and outside. 
They must know how to place all the roofing, 
skylights, gutters, down spouts, cornices, and metal 
ceilings needed on a building. In this regard theirs 
is a building trade; but sheet-metal men are also 
needed in the automobile industry for the bodies, 
fenders, tanks, and radiators, in factories which pro- 
duce kitchen utensils, stamped sheet-metal ware, 
or cans for canned goods, and, one might almost 
say, in every place where machines are made, for 
all ordinary machines have sheet-metal parts. 
82 


SERVICE BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN. 


The sheet-metal man needs good eyesight, strong 
fingers, and a clear head. To be of value he must 
know how to draft a pattern. A foremanship usually 
awaits the man who is proficient in his art. If 
he can estimate costs and is something of an execu- 
tive, he may reach a position of even greater service. 

Boiler-makers.—Boiler-makers are a _ distinct 
group from sheet-metal workers. Their work is in 
sheet steel. They make such fittings as boilers, 
condensers, smokestacks, and heavy tanks. A 
good boiler-maker can read blueprints and lay out 
his work either on paper or metal. 

Blacksmiths.—Most villages still have their black- 
smith, but to-day the more pretentious smithies 
are in the factories. ‘The modern blacksmith uses 
steam or compressed air hammers, oil or coal fur- 
naces, coal or gas forges, cranes for handling heavy 
work, dies, sledges, and small hammers. The 
work calls for considerable physical strength. High- 
grade labor, such as spring making, is performed 
only by men of long training and experience. 

Enginemen.—Every factory has connected with 
it a power plant. An engineman is employed to 
superintend the plant and keep the engines running 
smoothly. In a large factory he has as his assistants 
enginemen of different grades, switchboard atten- 
dants, dynamo tenders, firemen, and water tenders. 
The engine and dynamo rooms generally furnish 
comfortable working conditions. The fire room, 
however, where most enginemen serve an appren- 
ticeship, is usually very hot, and the work there 
exhausting. 

The engineman who can take care of one of the 
titanic modern plants capable of producing eighty 

83 


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thousand horsepower earns a good salary, but he 
does not come by it without long preparation. He 
must know something of mathematics, mechanical 
drawing, and the mechanics of steam production, 
boiler installation, and engine design, together with 
the practical knowledge which only experience can 
give. If the power is electrical, he cannot know 
too much concerning the properties of electricity. 

Molders, sheet-iron workers, boiler-makers, black- 
smiths, enginemen, all need Hiram Golf’s religion. 

Automobile maintenance.—Another type of ma- 
chinist is the one who maintains in good running 
order that machine which in the last few years 
has become more common than any other—the 
automobile. 

Repair-shop men deal with cars when they are 
out of order. 

Starting and lighting experts repair and adjust 
electrical equipment, including wiring, lights, motors, 
and generators. 

Ignition experts look after the testing, adjust- 
ment, and maintenance of current supply, contact 
breakers, vibrators, spark plugs, coils, condensers, 
distributors, and magnetos. Starting and lighting 
and ignition men need practical experience and a 
technical knowledge of electricity. 

Certain men charge, rebuild, repair, test, and 
keep in condition, storage-batteries. A knowledge 
of chemistry would help a man to become a bat- 
tery expert. 

Tire-repair men take care of the splicing, patch- 
ing, retreading, building up, inside repair, and 
vulcanizing of casings and tubes that have been 
disabled. 

84 


SERVICE BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN 


For all of these branches a general education is 
always an aid, especially because considerable 
reading must be done to keep pace with new develop- 
ments in the industry. For a foreman or manager 
a knowledge of business is an asset. 

Other trades.—The welder is an artisan whose 
work is coming more and more into demand. Weld- 
ing is the art of uniting metals by heating them 
until they may be fused together. In forge weld- 
ing the blacksmith’s fire is the heating agent. The 
oxy-acetylene welder handles a torch or blowpipe, 
at the tip of which a flame is produced by the 
burning of a mixture of two gases, acetylene and 
oxygen. In thermit welding heat is brought about 
by chemical reaction. There are two kinds of 
electric welding—resistance and arc. The former 
is similar to forge welding in that the parts to be 
welded are heated to a plastic condition and then 
forced together by means of mechanical pressure. 
In arc welding the parts are heated until they fuse 
together without the application of mechanical 
pressure. The oxy-acetylene flame and the arc are 
also used often for cutting certain metals. 

Space fails to speak at length of the garment 
trades, tailoring, designing, sample making, cutting, 
machine operating, and hand sewing, or of the fac- 
tory woodworking trades, or of the jewelry trades, 
designing, modeling, engraving, stone cutting, melt- 
ing and rolling, pressing and stamping, and die- 
making, or of photography, photo-engraving, and 
three-color work, or of the many crafts connected 
with commercial baking, or of the other trades, 
each of which has its own appeal and requires its 
own training. 

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OUT INTO LIFE 


Printing.—No discussion of the crafts is com- 
plete, however, without consideration of the print- 
ing trades, which in the United States employ 
nearly half a million people. 

Composition is the art of putting the types in 
the forms ready for printing. Under this general 
head would be placed hand composition, which 
includes setting up straight matter, advertisements, 
and job work, linotype, and monotype operation. 

Press work includes proofreading, which in itself 
involves a thorough knowledge of English, copy 
writing, made up from the general suggestions of 
customers, and printing-press work proper. 

Bindery work in the simplest form includes 
receiving and handling printed sheets, counting, 
straightening, cutting, folding by hand and machine, 
gathering, stitching, trimming, punching, number- 
ing, padding, and wrapping. 

It is evident that printing requires a good educa- 
tion. One of the greatest men America ever pro- 
duced, Benjamin Franklin, was proud of being a 
printer. 

Automobile men, printers, and all SU artisans 
need Hiram Golf’s retour 

What is Hiram Golf’s religion? Hive Golf, the 
New England cobbler, a character made famous by 
George H. Hepworth, stated his creed in plain lan- 


guage: 


“T am a shoemaker by the grace of God. To the Jedg- 
ment-seat I'll carry up a sample of the shoes I’ve been 
makin’, and fall or rise accordin’ as the sample represents 
good or bad work. Just look at that,” and he took up 
the battered shoe of a child; ‘‘that belongs to a little feller 

86 


SERVICE BY MACHINIST AND ARTISAN 


of six. If he should catch cold some muddy day, and get 
pneumonia, his father might lose the child. Now, then, 
I propose to mend them shoes as though my salvation 
depended on it. God is sayin’ to me, ‘Hiram, I have sot 
you to makin’ shoes, and I want you to make ’em good; 
don’t put no paper in the soles, for the sake of a little 
extra profit; and see that your uppers is well tanned.’ 
Every time I pull a thread I want to say to myself, “There! 
that stitch will hold! I’ve put my religion into it.’” 


Hiram Golf’s religion! How we need it! If you 
would serve God and man, go into the industrial 
world and do your part to substitute for the will- 
ingness to “get by” with slighted work the Hiram 
Golf spirit of usefulness and craftsmanship. Put 
your religion into your stitches! You will not 
only find a subtle happiness in your daily toil, 
but also open for yourself a path toward financial 
and all other kinds of success, because in the long 
run the world does justice only to those who do 
justice to the world. 


For DIsScussION 


1. If a man gets hurt at his machine, should he be 
blamed, or the owner of the factory? What are 
the workmen’s compensation laws of your State? 

. If a person possesses Hiram Golf’s religion of doing 
all work well, is it necessary for him to go to 
church? 

3. Will the automobile industry grow as fast in the next 

ten years as it has in the last ten? 

4. Are the number of printing establishments in a city 
an index of its cultural importance? What reason 
do you give for your answer? 

s. Certain persons have called religion “the opiate of the 
people,” meaning that it makes men contented to 


87 


S 


OUT INTO LIFE 


accept their lot and work hard for oppressive mas- 
ters when they ought to be awake to the injustice 
and demanding their rights. Do you think it has 
this tendency? 

6. Is it better for a young machinist to begin work in a 
small shop or a large one? 


For FuRTHER STUDY 


7. Read Acts 19. 21-41. How would you criticize 
Demetrius and the silversmiths’ union? What 
should they have done? Do you think unions 
make for lawlessness—or for law and order? 

8. There are at least twenty-five different machines 
mentioned in this chapter. What is each one for? 

g. When was blacksmithing invented? printing? Write 
an imaginative story of the first blacksmith or a 
historical sketch of the first printer. 

to. Of all the trades mentioned in the chapter, which 
one do you feel you are best cut out for? Give all 
your reasons why. 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 87-107. 

Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, Chapter XI. 

S. S. Center, pages 124-130, ‘‘A Potter’s Wheel’; pages 
208-217, ‘A Printing Office.’ ; 


88 


CHAPTER X 


THE COMMERCIAL TRADES—THE 
BUSINESS OF BUYING 


Mucu of the furniture used in the United States 
is produced in the factories of Grand Rapids. 
That so many thousands of homes should be enjoy- 
ing the products of a single community is, when 
one comes to think of it, little less than a miracle. 
It could never have been brought about except 
through our wholesale and retail furniture dealers. 

Commerce is service.—Now think of the tens 
of thousands of other commodities distributed in 
the same way, and you have an idea of the vast- 
ness of the service of American commerce. Shop- 
keepers, small and great, by buying in large quan- 
tities from single sources of supply, and selling as 
the public requires, so reducing the costs for every- 
body, are not only making their own living, but 
helping the world live as well. It has been said: 
“God could not answer for most people the prayer, 
‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ if it were not 
for the corner grocery man.” The producer of 
goods needs both the wholesale and retail buyer 
to help him distribute them. 

Where, however, there are more distributors of 
goods than necessary—five stores where two could 
more economically serve the public—their useful- 
ness 1s correspondingly curtailed. The present-day 
trend toward merging or linking retail establish- 
ments is therefore in many places a movement in 


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the right direction. Another call for Christian 
men!—since anybody can be a competitor, but to 
make a good cooperator it obviously takes the 
Golden-Rule ability of sharing the other man’s 
point of view. 

In spite of the diversity of the goods—battleships 
and buttons and everything between are articles 
of trade—there is a similarity in the work of all 
who buy and sell. The chart of the management 
of a store for mechandise, shown on the opposite 
page, may serve as a general model for any retail 
house, though each trade will require its own 
modifications. 

In this chapter we consider specifically the 
subject of purchasing. Whether this is done by a 
single person, as in a small store, or by a staff, 
certain sets of problems must be faced. The buyer 
must first, as the chart suggests, know what things 
cost. He must watch the fluctuation of publicly 
quoted prices. He will ordinarily try to buy wool, 
for instance, when wool is low, and avoid buying 
when it is high. Besides the quotations of the 
market, he will seek special prices upon goods for 
which he can in some way make it profitable for 
a seller to give him a reduction. The success of 
the five-and-ten cent stores is due partly to the 
large-scale buying which secures special bids from 
manufacturers. The decisions as to just what, 
just when, and whence to purchase, are a critical 
test of a buyer’s judgment. 

* When the order is placed it may need following 
up to insure prompt delivery. When the goods 
are delivered they must be carefully examined and 
checked up with the specifications of the order, 


go 


THE ORGANIZATION OF A STORE 
(After Gowin, Wheatley and Brewer, and Others) 


The manager 
Superintendent of purchasing division 
Chief of quotations department 
Head of office for general market quotations 
Head of office for special bids 
i Chief of orders department 
: Chief of stock rooms 
Head of receiving office 
Head of inventory office 
Head of disbursing office 
Superintendent of selling division 
Head of inside sales force 
Salesmen 
Chief outside agent 
Canvassers 
(Retail dealers) 
Chief of advertising department 
Superintendent of general office 
\\Superintendent of credits and collections 
Superintendent of accounting division 


Superintendent of shipping 


OUT INTO LIFE 


put in place in the stock room, priced, marked, 
and finally issued to the counters as called for. 
In some stores this disbursement to the counters 
is under the selling division, with the inventory 
office as a link between the buying and the selling. 
Every store has its own special arrangements. 

So movable articles are handled. It would be a 
bit difficult, however, to keep city lots, farm lands, 
dwelling houses, and other buildings in a stock 
room! Real estate men must therefore often do 
business outside their office. They either buy for 
themselves, with intent to sell when prices are 
higher, or purchase and sell on commission for 
other parties. In either case they must be familiar 
with general market prices and with all circum- 
stances, legal, architectural, and geographical, which 
enhance or diminish the value of real estate. 

Purchasing ability.—A buyer must have perfect 
technical knowledge of the article he is buying. 
The Roman proverb, “Caveat emptor’’—‘“Let the 
buyer beware’’—may not have the force to-day 
that it did when it was good form to fleece a buyer 
in proportion as your knowledge exceeded his 
ignorance; but there are still enough men selling 
goods who lack the virtue of truthfulness to make 
it absolutely necessary for a buyer to be able to 
judge the quality of the wares he buys. Besides, 
a seller may sometimes in pure carelessness send 
out defective goods which the buyer, if he knows 
his business, must discover and refuse. 

A buyer must possess a sense of relative values. 
A story is told of James Jerome Hill, who found 
fame and fortune in building railroads, that once 
when his young son teased him for a twenty-dollar 


Q2 


THE BUSINESS OF BUYING 


miniature train he had seen in a toyshop window 
he told the boy that he would give him the money 
to buy it the next day. When the next morning 
came, the shrewd father had provided himself 
with twenty shining new silver dollars, which he 
laid down, one by one, in a row, before his son. 
“Now,” said he, ‘‘you may spend these and buy 
your train, or you may let the train go and save 
these for something you may want more later.” 
How those bright coins shone! The more the boy 
looked at them the more his desire for the train 
waned. 

The boy’s problem, as to whether the train or 
the twenty dollars would do him more good, is the 
peculiar problem of every buyer. A grain dealer, 
for instance, must decide every time he contem- 
plates sending in an order whether at that time 
his money is worth more to him in grain or in spot 
cash. The more he knows about the entire grain 
market, both from the point of view of the farmer 
and of the consumer, and about general business 
conditions, the wiser judgment he will be able to 
make. Apnreciation of relative values is a rare 
gift: it is not mere chance that the owners of large 
concerns are usually more willing to intrust the 
selling than the buying to hands other than their 
own. 

A retailer does all his buying from the point of 
view of those to whom he will sell. To him “value”’ 
means always, selling value. A buyer of ladies’ 
millinery, for example, will not buy hats covered 
with gold lace, however valuable they may be in 
themselves, because he knows that women will 
not wear them. Buyers often receive their best 


93 


OUT INTO LIFE 


training in the sales department, where they learn 
what is salable. 

Preparation.—For a buyer, then, two lines of 
preparation are necessary: first, knowledge of the 
thing to be bought, whether it is a pin, a plow, or 
a palace. The more complicated the thing is, the 
greater study it will require. Almost anyone may 
be a good buyer of cheese cloth, for its points of 
excellence are soon learned; but only an engineer 
with a professional training can be a good buyer 
of electric locomotives. The second line of educa- 
tion, being more general, is more difficult to acquire. 
Every buyer must, however, in some way or other, 
learn discrimination between values. ‘This comes 
as a result of experience, observation, and memory, 
though courses in high school and college which 
call for real thought are useful. 

Boys who wish to become buyers usually enter 
the lowest positions in the buying division of the 
concern they select, and work up. If they have 
exceptional ability, they may advance, either in 
that house or another, to offices which command 
great influence and a high salary. 

Buying and honor.—When a buyer gives an order 
he gives his pledged word as a gentleman that he 
will buy upon the terms agreed upon. It is a con- 
tract—a solemn promise. Relying upon it, the 
seller goes to work to fill the order—hires extra 
labor, perhaps, borrows money from the banks, 
purchases materials to go into the goods ordered. 
If the buyer breaks his word, all the business thus 
built upon it goes to smash. 

The curse of the business world—or one of the 
curses—is the buyer who breaks his promise. There 


94 


THE BUSINESS OF BUYING 


was a time when contracts, though given only by 
word of mouth, were usually kept in good faith, 
but lately cancellation of orders has grown into a 
serious evil. Defaults of this nature have been 
made by citizens of every nation of the world— 
even our own. Not long ago the British Board of 
Trade sent to the United States Chamber of Com- 
merce for their action no less than twenty million 
dollars’ worth of contracts broken by American 
business men. 

The call is for buyers who will maintain their 
own and our country’s honor—for men who are 
dedicated to Christ and his ideals. If you are 
such a man, we need you! Let a business man 
speak—Mr. Oliver M. Fisher, president of the 
Boston Boot and Shoe Club: 


I would not venture to suggest the crying need of a 
background of a religious life except from the viewpoint 
of a business man who sees in it our only hope for the 
future. We are becoming an irreligious people, which 
means an irresponsible people, responsible to neither 
God nor man. No thoughts of the rights of the other 
fellow enter our minds. Our whole commercial structure 
rests upon the sanctity of contracts, and they in turn 
upon solemn moral and religious obligations. The back- 
ground of a religious life will make our contracts sacred. 
Prosperity is of little account and cannot exist without 
the maintenance of good faith. We need a deeper reli- 
gious conviction underlying every walk of life. 


Yes! If you go into business and expect to help 
your country, especially if you go as a buyer, you 
must take your code of honor from Christ. 

Every man a buyer.—Of the thousands of business 


28) 


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failures which take place every year in America, 
seventy-five per cent are due to unwise buying: 
of the hundreds of thousands of life failures which 
take place every year, all are due, in a larger sense, 
to unwise buying. Our young married people 
often buy a five-hundred-dollar automobile before 
they own a two-dollar book. The average Amer- 
ican spends twenty cents a week for the entire 
world-wide work of the church, and forty cents a 
week for ice cream and candy!—and two dollars more 
for perfumery, soft drinks, chewing gum and other 
such luxuries which he might be healthier without. 

We are lacking in a sense of relative values. 
We need to cultivate the buyer’s judgment and to 
apply it not only to material things but to life as 
a whole, carefully weighing luxuries and bodily 
comforts against learning and religion. 

Begin early! In the daily decisions you have 
to make now, get the habit of balancing off alter- 
natives. A young high-school graduate of pleasant 
manner, much in demand at parties, readily gave 
four or five nights a week to affairs of his friends. 
The expenses he incurred for clothes, dance tickets, 
and incidentals took almost all his savings, kept 
him out of college, and so made him less useful, 
finally, as a citizen and Christian. That young 
man lacked a buyer’s judgment. No doubt his 
pleasures with his friends were beneficial, but were 
they worth the price he paid for them? 

The kingdom of heaven needs men with buyers’ 
minds. 


For Discussion 
1. Would you rather be a buyer of real property, live 


96 


To. 


THE BUSINESS OF BUYING 


stock, machinery, tools, electrical devices, agri- 
cultural products, clothing, furniture, or carriages? 
Why? Give the reasons why you would turn down 
each one of the others. 


. Would your town be better off with more or fewer 


retail stores? 


. Which would you prefer to be, the buyer for a whole- 


sale or a retail house? 


. Supposing you were given twenty-five dollars to buy 


books—what would you buy? 


. Many churches pay more for Sunday-morning music 


than for religious education. Is this good buying? 
In what ratio of importance do you place the two? 


. Enemies of England, from Samuel Adams on, have 


called her ‘‘a nation of shopkeepers.’’ Could this 
epithet be fairly applied to America to-day? Is it 
an epithet to be ashamed of? What is our dom- 
inant interest? What should it be? 


For FurtTHER STUDY 


. Read the famous story Jesus told as it is given in 


Luke 12. 16-21. In what sense was the man a good 
buyer—and in what, not? How does a man be- 
come “‘rich toward God’’? 


. To be a good citizen what ought a single man with no 


dependents on a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a 
year devote to his church? the town charities? 
his own self-culture? insurance? What ought he 
to save? 


. Suppose you have been commissioned by your church 


to buy a hundred hymn books—the best you can 
find for the money—get a friend to act as sales- 
man, and demonstrate the making of a good pur- 
chase. What questions will you ask? 

Write a brief theme telling what further preparations 


97 


OUT INTO LIFE 


you would need before you actually took up the 
selling of the article named in answer to Question 1. 


For REFERENCE 


H. E. Fosdick, The Manhood of the Master, Chapter X. 
S. S. Center, pages 96-107: ‘“The Wheat Pit.” 


98 


CHAPTER XI 


THE COMMERCIAL TRADES—THE 
BUSINESS OF SELLING 


Settinc is another link in the great production- 
distribution-consumption chain by which business 
supports the people of the nation. The chart in 
the last chapter shows how a store might be organ- 
ized for it. 

The sales force.—There is an inside sales force 
in all ordinary stores. The man behind the counter 
has it in his power, through a pleasant, tactful 
manner, to build up the business of his depart- 
ment by winning and holding good customers. His 
line of natural promotion is indicated on the chart. 

Many retailers and almost all wholesalers employ 
men to work up trade outside by calling on pro- 
spective buyers. Every manufacturing concern has 
its salesmen on the road. Most positions of this 
sort require so much traveling that men who object 
to being long from home do not find them to their 
liking. Travelers usually receive better pay, how- 
ever, since fewer men are qualified for their work, 
than salesmen in the same line at home, and to 
some men travel has its own fascination. 

The salesman has a better opportunity than most 
other men to demonstrate his worth, for the sales 
he makes are at any time an instant indication of 
his value to his firm. His ability to secure repeat- 
orders from old customers and preliminary interest 
from new ones also is a factor his firm considers. 


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His also is the advantage of having a personal 
relation between himself and his purchasers. Ad- 
vance to whatever post he may, or transfer to 
whatever firm, these customers will remain loyal 
to him. A man with a large clientele of this sort 
is in a position to secure a good wage—or to set 
up in business for himself. 

What makes a salesman?—A successful salesman 
writes in a federal government publication: 


A salesman must be able to talk fluently and con- 
vincingly. He must possess a good knowledge of Eng- 
lish, an understanding of human nature, a thorough 
knowledge of his wares, a familiarity with business cus- 
toms, an appreciation of business ethics, and a fund of 
information regarding general business conditions. 


If we had to reduce this excellent statement to 
bare generalities, we might say that there are two 
essentials for a salesman: a thorough knowledge 
of the wares he is selling, and an understanding of 
the man to whom he is selling them. 

If a salesman does not know his goods, though 
for a little he may deceive those who are more 
ignorant than he, he will presently meet the expert 
who will unmask him, and from then on his repu- 
tation in the business world is clouded. In many 
cases knowledge of the goods requires long pre- 
liminary study. Recently one of the rubber com- 
panies needed a man as adviser to the management 
of the sales department. Going over the heads 
of a number of employees matured in the service, 
they chose a comparatively young man. Why? 
In his odd moments this man had been collecting 
a library on rubber—and learning the contents 

100 


THE BUSINESS OF SELLING 


of it. The library proved to be one of the best of 
its kind in the country, and the young man to be 
an expert on the theory of rubber manufacture. 
The company would have given him almost any 
position he asked for, for with his technical knowl- 
edge they could not afford to lose him. 

Even more important in a salesman than knowl- 
edge of the wares is the mental characteristic we 
may loosely term ‘“‘selling ability.”” This is in 
the main a knowledge of human motives. While 
the buyer must know the relative value of things, 
the seller is concerned more with people: he must 
know what they are likely to think and do in given 
circumstances. Everywhere in the Gospels we 
come across sentences like the following: 

“Jesus, knowing their thought, said...” 

“Knowing at once what they were reasoning within 
themselves, Jesus said...” 

“Jesus knew what was in men.”’ 

Anyone to whom God has given even in slight 
degree this faculty of understanding people that 
he bestowed so abundantly upon Jesus should 
harbor a profound gratitude. It is a gift, but it 
is a gift which may be cultivated. 

Although no two people act from the same 
motives, there are two or three very general prin- 
ciples upon which all good salesmen plan their 
conversation with prospective buyers: 

1. To win a man’s attention to a proposition 
one must establish a favorable point of contact 
with him. Then: 

2. To win a man’s interest in a proposition one 
must fasten it to his other interests. Then: 

3. To win a man’s decision upon a proposition 

IOI 


OUT INTO LIFE 


one must lay it before him in clear statement, 
contagious enthusiasm, and evident sincerity. 

These principles, or others like them, with all 
their corollaries and applications, are taught by 
every firm to its sellers. 

Why not try yourself out at salesmanship after 
school hours or during vacation? You might be 
either a counter clerk or a house-to-house can- 
vasser. You would make little money, but if you 
studied yourself in the light of these principles, 
you would acquire some experience. 

‘‘Salesmanship is what ails us.”’—The trickery 
of selling people what they neither especially want 
nor need is one of the chief blights on American 
business. There is an idea abroad that selling is 
a kind of game which one must win at all costs. 
A good salesman, some think, is one who can sell 
anything to anybody, regardless of whether the 
sale is a service to the purchaser. A man in a 
large department store puts it: 


The pleasure of baiting the hook and watching the 
good old public bolt it! I am one of a band of genial 
highwaymen, otherwise known as retailers, who supply 
you with all sorts of things you don’t need, and only 
charge the market price, plus the cost of tickling your 
palate. 


No! This is all very well as an amusing descrip- 
tion, but too many salesmen make “baiting the 
hook” their serious aim in life. Can a real Chris- 
tian sell goods without a thought for the interest 
of his buyer? Will he make money at his brother’s 
expense? 

It is here that you may make your weight felt 

102 


THE BUSINESS OF SELLING 


if you enter the profession of selling: you may add 
your strength to those already doing their best to 
make the vocation thoroughly Christian—to sell 
to men only what you would have them, in reversed 
circumstances, sell to you. In the words of Mr. 
Filene, the Boston merchant, “‘Business, in order to 
have the right to succeed, must be of real service 
to the community.”’ 

Mr. Filene also points out that the greatest 
service is to enable people to buy goods cheaply. 
This is a direct denial of the old idea that a man 
has a right to get as much as he can for his wares. 
A man must sell goods for more than he pays for 
them to recompense him for his labor and the 
risk of loss he incurs; but his labor and his risk 
have only a given price. The man who makes 
an excessive profit was called during the Great 
War a “profiteer,” and was branded as a robber 
of his fellow countrymen. Is he anything else in 
peace time? 

Advertising. — Salesmen — retailers, wholesalers, 
travelers, auctioneers, and canvassers—usually work 
through personal interviews, but the advertiser is 
the salesman who puts his ideas into print and 
picture and encourages people to buy by appealing 
to them through the eye. A government pamphlet 
outlines his work: 


Consider the sign over the door, the labels on pack- 
ages, the leaflet or catalog describing goods, directions 
for using, sign cards, window posters, mailing cards, and 
the like; then, the business letter answering inquiries, or 
soliciting orders, the follow-up system that turns the 
inquiry into an order, the trade-aid work of many kinds 
that helps the manufacturer make good distributors of 

103 


OUT INTO LIFE 


his dealers—and you have a bird’s-eye view of some 
forms of advertising work that are almost universally 
used. Add to these the demand for sales-producing 
“copy” for newspaper, magazine, and trade-paper adver- 
tising; the preparation of illustrations and typesetting 
necessary to put the advertising into effect—and it is at 
once apparent that an army of workers is needed to carry 
on this work. This is without taking into consideration 
outdoor advertising—billboards, bulletins, and painted 
signs, electrical advertising display, street-car display, 
street-car advertising, propaganda campaigns, civic and 
organization advertising, each of which offers fields of 
great extent. | 


Advertising calls for all of a man’s mental abil- 
ity, and the opportunity for promotion is bounded 
only by the limit of his capacity. There are 
many schools which give courses in the various 
branches. 

The commercial trades, being ‘‘white-collar’’ jobs, 
are sometimes supposed to call for less energy than 
the manual occupations. Do not be deceived. 
Eight hours at a desk or counter is just as fatiguing 
in its way as eight hours at a machine. 

Advertising furnishes as great temptations as it 
does privileges. The temptation is insincerity. 
How easy to make your silent spokesman say that 
your goods are one hundred per cent pure—when 
they are not! The public will believe anything 
for a while—why not gull them a bit? But can 
you gull them without making yourself a hypocrite, 
not to say a common liar? Can you imagine Jesus 
in his carpenter shop advertising as real quartered 
oak, wood which was only stained and ‘‘grained”’ 
to resemble it? 

104 


a ce ts —_ 


THE BUSINESS OF SELLING 


Advertisers with ideals are strongly backing the 
“truth-in-advertising’”’ movement which they them- 
selves started. They are realizing that theirs is 
a privileged position of public trust; and in behalf 
of their own good name as well as for the public 
interest they are driving dishonest advertisers out 
of American business. They are looking for young 
men to come in and help them in their crusade. 

Foreign trade.—If you are one who delights in 
travel, you may find an occupation to your liking 
in American business in the foreign field. To serve 
in an American office overseas is to help bind the 
nations of the world together. 

The Christian salesman.—It is all very well to 
say that the crying need in the salesman’s trade is 
for honor—but how does a man keep himself honor- 
able amid the terrific temptations of business life? 
The life of John Huyler helps to answer that 
question. 

When he was a very young man with no capital, 
he decided to go into the candy business. He 
made only one rule—to sell good candy. Others 
have started in with a similar rule, but when dis- 
honest shortcuts to apparent success offered them- 
selves they let the rule go. Huyler somehow knew 
the secret of how to stick to the rule. He began 
by renting space in another man’s store. Soon he 
was able to rent the whole store, then to buy it, 
then to rent or buy another—and still others. 
In his later years, when he had become a very 
wealthy man, his pastor remarked on one of the 
checks he handed in to the church the note: For 
M. P. The next time he saw him he inquired out 
of curiosity what this stood for. “They mean 

105 


OUT INTO LIFE 


‘My Partner account,’”’ said Mr. Huyler. “But I 
thought you had built up your business without 
a partner,” said the minister. ‘‘No,”’ said the man 
of only one rule, “I have had a Partner from the 
beginning.”? And the minister understood the 
secret of how he had stuck to his rule. 


For Discussion 


rt. Would you rather be a counter-clerk, traveling sales- 
man, wholesale salesman, auctioneer, or canvasser? 
Why? Why would you not choose any one of the 
others? 

2. A seller of lace slightly though regularly cheats his 
buyers, but as he never remains long in any one 
town, he has never been called to account and has 
made money. Is not dishonesty a good policy for 
him? 

3. Criticize the advertisements in a current magazine or 
newspaper. Why does each attract your atten- 
tion? or fail to? Why does each really interest 
you? or fail to? Which most makes you desire to 
purchase? Has American advertising anything to 
do with American extravagance? 

. Some say that every man is, in a sense, either a buyer 
or seller. Under which head would you classify a 
farmer? miner? manufacturer? builder? lawyer? 
doctor? minister? 

s. Is it in general better for a salesman to stay with one 
concern or to change to a different employer now 
and then? 

6. How much profit ought a man ordinarily to make on 
asale? Ten per cent? one hundred per cent? 
What? Should he have one price for all or, like 
doctors who have both millionaires and charity 
cases among their patients, charge more to those 
customers who have more money? 


106 


™ 


THE BUSINESS OF SELLING 


For FURTHER STUDY 


7. Read Matthew 21. 12-13. Did Jesus then think that 
selling was wrong? Why did he drive the men out? 

8. Write out your observations on the way in which a 
good salesman sold you something. Was he 
dressed neatly? Was he gruff? How did he greet 
you? How did he find out what you wanted? 
What suggestions did he make? How did he take 
leave of you? Did he strike you as being a Chris- 
tian? 

g. On the basis of the principles of salesmanship given 
in the chapter, write a letter to an employer asking 
for a job. How would you “sell yourself’? Is 
modesty a virtue? 

10. Definitely, why do you consider yourself cut out 
rather for a buyer than a seller—or vice versa? 


For REFERENCE 


Boy Scouts, Business, pages 18-20, for selling. 

Giles and Giles, pages 121-134, for selling; pages 139- 
142, for advertising. 

Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 235-240, for selling. 

S. S. Center, pages 108-123, ‘“The Man Within Him.” 


107 


CHAPTER XII 
MEN AND MONEY 


IF you wished to set up in business for yourself 
or to increase the size of a business already estab- 
lished, your first need would be for money—to be 
converted into equipment and material. You would 
find money for this useful purpose only in the 
hands of those who by dint of energy or otherwise 
had saved a surplus over their current needs. 
The financial world is sustained by men who have 
learned to save. 

Financing a business.—If you were to follow a 
common practice, you would make your need pub- 
licy known, and as an inducement to possible 
investors you might promise to each man who 
gave a part of the amount needed (in technical 
terms, who subscribed to a share of stock) a voice 
in controlling the policy of the business. This 
would be similar to the vote that each American 
citizen has in controlling the government’ of his 
town and nation. As a citizen, however, a man 
can have but one vote, while as a financier he may 
have as many votes as he has shares of stock. 

In our civil government we cannot all be present 
in Congress to make our laws, and we therefore 
elect representatives to act for us; so also in com- 
panies where the stock is held by a number of 
people, representatives, “‘directors,’’ are elected to 
meet and direct affairs for the stockholders. The 
directors put the actual administration of the con- 

108 


MEN AND MONEY 


cern into the hands of a competent manager who is 
employed on a salary. They determine what use 
to make of the company’s profit; whether, for 
instance, to apply it to a further expansion of the 
business, save it for a rainy day, or divide it up 
into “dividends”? among the stockholders. 

Some shares do not carry with them the privilege 
of a vote. The company usually promises to give 
the holders of such stock a first claim upon any 
dividend declared or upon the general assets of the 
company in case it should fail. 

Concerns much more rarely finance themselves by 
an issue of bonds. People then lend them money 
outright, accepting in exchange, in the simplest 
type of bond, a promise that the money will be 
paid back at a certain time and a certain interest 
paid periodically in the meantime. So governments 
often raise money. A bondholder’s claims upon a 
company are prior to those of a stockholder. 

One of the moral problems you may be called 
upon to help solve lies in this field of finance. As 
most concerns are at present organized, the profit, 
if any, goes entirely to the stockholders, on the 
theory that they furnished the money which made 
the profit possible. Another idea which is begin- 
ning to receive support is that the men in the 
office who manage the concern and work on salary, 
and the men in the shop who work for wages ought 
also to share the profits—and the losses, when they 
come. This viewpoint has led to many so-called 
“profit-sharing” systems. These vary in form from 
doles handed out at the end of a good year to faith- 
ful employees and grants of stock to the workers at 
the end of certain terms of service, to regular sys- 

109 


QUT INTO LIFE 


tems of distribution in which stockholders, manage- 
ment, and labor share. Some men believe that 
“profit-sharing” is the solution of the whole prob- 
lem of capital versus labor, and it is certain that 
in many cases where a scheme of the sort has 
been attempted, the returns to the company, both 
in money and good feeling, have been even beyond 
expectation. Mr. Milton S. Hershey, who for years 
has been working this out in his chocolate factories, 
feels, to judge from his own words, a positive ex- 
hilaration in the thought that he has discovered 
the way to treat the men who work for him as he 
would wish to be treated himself. 

This may be the field of your call to life service. 
It takes men of clear vision and iron nerve to con- 
vert business into more Christian forms. But 
what is more needed? 

Credit.—Thanks to the ‘credit’? system, com- 
paratively little actual money is used in the com- 
merce of the United States. Credit is postponed 
cash payment. The system has obvious advan- 
tages. It relieves a man from continually with- 
drawing the money he has invested. If a man 
owned a house, and little else, but desired to buy 
an automobile, on a strictly cash basis he would 
be compelled to sell his house to pay the automobile 
agent. By the use of credit he simply gives the 
dealer a written promise that he will pay him at 
a later date and that in the meantime he will give 
him periodically a small amount of interest for the 
privilege of delaying the main payment—and the 
car is his. Then he will set about earning enough 
to make this payment and so be saved from selling 
his house. 

IIO 


MEN AND MONEY 


Banking.—Let us suppose the dealer needed spot 
cash and the householder would not pay him that 
way. Under a cash system the dealer would lose 
his sale; but on a credit basis he would accept the 
note of promise (technically, ‘the bill of exchange’’) 
and then sell it to a third person for what it was 
worth. He would thus make both his sale and 
his money. 

This third person who handles notes in modern 
business is the bank. We often think of a bank 
merely as a place to put money for safekeeping, or 
for bearing interest, but it is much more than that. 
It engineers the credit system of a community by 
buying and holding the many kinds of notes of 
promise. It is able to pay interest on deposits 
because of the interest it receives on these notes. 

These notes of promise are “negotiable,” that is, 
they may pass through any number of hands and 
represent any number of business transactions before 
reaching the bank. They are not money, but they 
are as good as money, for it is known that a bank 
will pay money for them. With them American 
business men are able to do twenty-four dollars’ 
worth of business for every cash dollar used. 
Through our Federal Banking System, which cor- 
relates the work of all our banks, the exchange of 
notes of credit is reduced to its simplest terms. 

Let me introduce you to John DeHart Harrison, 
who, though he is a young man in the banking 
business, can give you an inside view of it: 


The compensations of banking? Making enough to 
live on in comparative comfort, and the prestige and 
power of one’s business connection, are important con- 

ITI 


OUT INTO LIFE 


siderations but certainly do not constitute determining 
factors. On the other hand, working under almost con- 
stant pressure where things of importance are usually 
happening, the stimulus of continuous competition, and 
the assurance that the opportunity is there as soon as 
you are ready for it, are things that strongly appeal to 
the man of normal ambition who is not looking for a 
sinecure. 

The man in a trust company cannot expect to make a 
name for himself or a fortune overnight. Final success, 
if there is such a thing, comes, he knows, only after years 
of development. 

There are some of us who can do our best only when 
we find inspiration. Here, I think, the banking house of 
to-day holds something distinctive for a man. It must 
win and keep the confidence and support of a discrimi- 
nating public and must give honest service. Such an 
institution cannot afford to stoop to petty, questionable 
things. It must stand out always for high principles; it 
must and does try to raise the standards of finance and 
general business and attempts in every possible way to 
educate the public to the point where they will demand 
the high standards which it advocates. 


Manifestly, bankers must be trustworthy. What 
the banks are to our financial system, trusty men 
are to the banks—a bulwark. And borrowers must 
be trustworthy too: credit is often extended to 
men simply on their general reputation, without 
any security being placed in the hands of the lender. 
The very word ‘“‘credit’’? comes from the Latin 
credere, “‘to trust.’? Yet it has been said that 
Christianity is not needed by business! 

Insurance.—Every business man knows that 
stable conditions are best for trade. The smaller 
the element of chance, the better. Wrecks on rail- 

112 


MEN AND MONEY 


roads or highways and at sea, earthquakes, fire, 
and pestilence—these are some of the circumstances 
which make for uncertainty. Three centuries ago a 
group of shipowners who met in Lloyd’s Coffee 
House decided to enter into an agreement that if 
any one of them suffered a loss at sea, the rest 
would give him financial assistance. Upon this 
principle all insurance is based: that the losses of 
the individual should be borne by the many. In- 
surance is the branch of finance exclusively devoted 
to reducing the effects of chance. 

An insurance agent has all the opportunity of any 
salesman to build up his business. Promotions to 
positions as agency managers, superintendents, and 
field supervisors in life, fire, accident, or other 
insurance companies are constantly given to men 
of ability and experience. 

The financial returns of insurance salesmen depend 
almost entirely upon each man’s ability. Begin- 
ners should have at least a high-school education, 
and more advanced training is always an asset. 

A successful insurance agent once said: “‘I am in 
the Christian ministry! I spend my time teaching 
people to look after themselves and those who are 
near and dear to them—by insuring against mis- 
fortune. I doubt if there is any greater pleasure 
in life than that which is mine when, after some 
disaster—death, or fire, or other—I carry to the 
survivors the check from my insurance company. 
It is a symbol of man’s care for man.” This is 
worth thinking over. 

Brokerage.—‘‘Brokers’’ make a business of buy- 
ing and selling for others, stocks, bonds, and other 
such substitutes for money. This business requires 


113 


OUT INTO LIFE 


a buyer’s instinct to the nth power, for buying a 
block of stock is really buying part of a business. 
The liquid flow of capital, which is the life-blood 
of business, would be absolutely impossible without 
the work of our brokers. 

One hears much of speculation in stocks in Wall 
Street and other financial centers, and there are 
failures reported from this cause almost every day. 
Business could well do without plungers. It is 
here that the Christian broker who is really trying 
to be of service can make his weight felt. By 
eternal vigilance he can discover and assist in 
running out of business men who have a perversion 
for gambling in stocks, and by his own integrity 
and careful methods he can help hold the business 
world to a high Christian level. 

Accounting.— Wherever money is concerned there 
must be accounting. A competent accountant, 
therefore, who knows the method of present-day 
business is no mean citizen of the financial world. 

A man trained as an accountant may remain in 
his profession and establish a large clientele, or he 
may gradually interest himself in some one indus- 
trial or commercial concern and eventually turn 
his entire attention to management. His salary 
limit is wholly dependent upon his own ability. 
His success will depend largely upon his judgment 
and his imagination. 

Upon a background of good general education 
a man who has an aptitude for mathematics 
and organization can make himself an accountant 
by the study of theoretical and practical account- 
ing, auditing, economics, corporation finance, and 
business management. This means years of training 


114 


MEN AND MONEY 


—at least two—preferably four. There are local 
colleges in every large business district where the 
requisite courses are given. Young men often—and 
wisely—take a short-time position in a business 
office while they are educating themselves in the 
theory. 

Public accountants are public servants. John 
Alexander Cooper, C. P. A., says of his calling: 


There is no profession, not excepting that of the min- 
istry or of the law, in which it is more imperative that 
the practitioner be governed by the highest code of 
morality—so great is the influence which our profession 
can and does exercise upon business affairs. 


Since money is the index of business strength, 
the financial men, bankers, brokers, and the like, 
who direct the larger investments of money, wield 
real power. They can weaken a crooked concern 
and strengthen an honest one. The bankers in 
the towns and cities throughout the country in 
general have a most healthy influence. What a 
pride America can take in her Henry P. Davison 
and the other international financiers who have de- 
voted their lives to build peace between the nations! 
Give us a nation of Christian financial men to-day, 
and to-morrow we will have something like a Chris- 
tian nation—and even possibly a Christian world. 


For DIscussion 


1. Is money good or bad for the human race? Why? 

2. Some say that all the profits of a business belong to 
the workers, for they are the only ones who do the 
work, and that no dividends should ever be paid 
on mere money investments, since money does not 
work. What do you say? 


115 


Io. 


_ OUT INTO LIFE 


. Should a man legally bankrupt try to pay his debts? 
. Are there more lucky breaks for men in finance than 


in other business enterprises? 


. Why is gambling a menace to sound business? 
. Should a certified public accountant advertise his 


talents as a merchant his wares? 


For FurRTHER STUDY 


. What did Jesus mean in the words recorded in Luke 


16. 9? What do the commentaries and Bible dic- 
tionaries say? 


. If you were an international banker, how could you 


promote the cause of peace? Ask a banker. 


. Describe the profit-sharing plan in use in some fac- 


tory you know about. 

How could you best live and help live—by being a 
promoter (one who raises money for business enter- 
prises), a banker, an insurance man, a broker, or a 
C. P. A.? Definitely, why? 


For REFERENCE 


Boy Scouts, Business, pages 14-17, for insurance. 
Giles and Giles, pages 80-86, for banking. 
». 9. Center, pages 77-80, ““The Romance of a Busy 


Broker’; pages 81-95, ‘““The Woman and Her Bonds.” 


116 


CHAPTER XIII 


CLERICAL WORK: THE FOUNDATION 
OF BUSINESS 


In somewhat the same sense that manufacturing, 
building, and similar trades are based mainly upon 
machine work, so commerce depends largely upon 
desk work. Machine operators and desk clerks are 
sometimes distinguished as hand workers and brain 
workers. No distinction could be more absurd. 
Both vocations call for the use of both brains and 
hands. 

General clerical work.—A missionary in interior 
Turkey, going one morning recently to the city 
post office, found the mail dumped in the Turkish 
fashion in a pile on the floor, whence the dozen or 
more people who were expecting mail were attempt- 
ing to rescue their own. Being a friend of the 
postmaster, the missionary suggested that the mail 
might better have been distributed. He replied, 
“We have not had time—it has been here only 
four days!’ But the missionary had come prepared: 
he drew from his pocket a clipping from a news- 
paper which stated the number of letters and 
telephone calls received and efficiently handled 
every day in a large business concern in America, 
a number which ran into the high thousands. The 
official read it with growing scorn and handed it 
back: “‘A newspaper lie—a humanly impossible 
task!” 

The task of receiving, classifying, and answering 


117 


OUT INTO LIFE 


the daily mail and handling other business papers 
by which even a medium-sized concern is deluged 
would be humanly impossible without an army of 
clerks, keen, quick, and accurate, who know the 
technique of office work. 

A clerk must know the various indexing and 
filing systems in use; and in an office of any size 
he must know how to operate the various labor- 
saving machines. Adding machines have been in 
use for many years, but to-day calculating machines 
which, in the hands of skillful clerks, are capable 
of almost every mathematical wizardry, are installed 
in all large houses. Every time goods are sold on 
the floor of a department store, every time goods 
are bought, every time any man of the millions 
employed in manufacturing and in the other trades 
is paid, calculations must be made in the accounting 
departments. This inconceivable volume of cler- 
ical labor called for by American business is readily 
handled by the clerk with his pen and ink and his 
machine. 

The benefits derived from general clerical work 
are by no means insignificant. A clerk has, or may 
have, the pleasure of knowing that he is useful. 
Without him the clock of business would stop and 
our whole national life collapse. 

The work has its own fascination for people who 
are fond of doing things systematically. 

The clerk, being in close touch with the manage- 
ment, is not seldom raised to a position of executive 
responsibility. If he possesses qualities of leader- 
ship and has had sufficient commercial training, he 
may be made office manager. 

The office manager is the foreman of the whole 

118 


THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS 


office force. He has to see that work passes through 
the office with all speed and smoothness. This 
calls for a knowledge of people, tact to deal with 
them, ability to organize the classifying and filing 
of papers, together with good general knowledge of 
business methods and of the business world. 

The average American high-school graduate will 
not take long in learning the fundamentals of 
general clerical work, especially if he has a native 
liking for arithmetic. In this occupation, however, 
as in others, the young man who has the best train- 
ing stands the best chance for promotion. 

There is a difference between a Christian clerk 
and an unchristian clerk. Where does it lie? A 
man who knows that he is working in a friendly 
world and that by performing his useful daily task 
he is really helping his brother men, not to say his 
Father in heaven—such a man surely goes to his 
office with greater joy than a man who sees neither 
rime nor reason in the interminable grind of setting 
down figures. 

Will there not also be a difference in the kind 
of work they do? Longfellow’s words are still 
familiar: 


“Tn the elder days of Art 
Builders wrought with greatest care 
Each minute and unseen part, 
For the gods see everywhere.”’ 


It is as such a builder that the Christian clerk 
regards himself. His work is done under the eye 
of his Father. It is therefore painstaking, accurate, 
patient, strong. Note the coincidence: It is just 
such qualities which make for success and promotion! 


11g 


OUT INTO LIFE 


Bookkeeping.—The profession of accountancy has 
already been discussed. The most natural entrance 
to it is through bookkeeping. Certain savages 
cannot count over ten. What would one of them 
do in face of such a problem as daily confronts a 
bookkeeper!—two hundred barrels of flour sold, 
money received for eight hundred barrels previously 
sold, one hundred barrels sold on an installment 
plan, fifty barrels damaged in transit, five thousand 
dollars borrowed, interest reckoned and paid on a 
debt, insurance premiums due on a dozen different 
policies, etc.—all of these and one hundred other 
items the successful bookkeeper handles with ease 
and decision. 

Bookkeeping to-day means keeping books accord- 
ing to the double-entry system, whereby every 
transaction is recorded both on the side of debits 
and credits, the one a check upon the other. Amer- 
ican business owes a debt it cannot repay to the 
clerk who invented this method and to the clerks 
to-day who by its use keep the business world 
balanced. 

Besides the possible advancement into account- 
ancy from bookkeeping, there are other channels 
of promotion. A trained man may become an 
expert in a single field, such as cost-accounting or 
auditing, or he may fit himself for the position of 
head bookkeeper in a big business institution. 

The bookkeeper who knows his business is sure 
of permanent employment. He is rarely released 
when business depression calls for retrenchment in 
a company’s pay roll. 

Generally speaking, the more one knows of the 
science of accounts, the higher he will rise as a 

120 


THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS 


bookkeeper. Perhaps you have already studied 
the rudiments of bookkeeping in the public high 
school. There are excellent private business schools 
throughout the country; and many _ universities 
now have their departments of commerce. 

What has been said of the Christian clerk holds 
true of the Christian bookkeeper. He finds a joy 
in working and maintains a standard of excellence in 
workmanship that his unfortunate unchristian brother 
does not possess. His brother is poor in comparison, 
no matter how much greater his salary may be. 

“But,” you may reflect, “there are so many 
bookkeepers in the world, how can I with any 
eagerness anticipate becoming simply another book- 
keeper?”? Only remember: God did not make 
anyone of us to be, and will not reward anyone for 
being, a man of special distinction. He did make 
us to be, and will give us his own reward for being, 
useful helpers in his growing kingdom. The sense 
of being such a helper is one of the few things worth 
living for. A tremendous partnership! And yet 
the humblest may have it. 

Each man must do his share. Snowflakes in the 
form of glaciers have chiseled our continent! And 
that is what all of us are: snowflakes at work on 
a continent called the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Stenography.—A man who can write as fast as 
a person naturally speaks earns his salary. Cer- 
tain law court stenographers who do perfect work 
receive a high salary, but these are as exceptional 
as they are high. 

The chief advantage of the occupation is stated 
in an official publication of the United States 
Government: 

121 


OUT INTO LIFE 


In no other occupation is one thrown into such con- 
stant and close contact with the business executive to 
whose advantage it is to promote an employee who has 
shown capacity for more important and profitable work. 
Many prominent men might be named who owe their 
success to some extent to their ability to write shorthand. 
They had the chance to go to school to the best teachers 
of business in the world, that is, the executive heads of 
their respective concerns. 


A pamphlet advertising stenographic positions for 
young men puts down the following as necessary 
qualifications: ; 


. Character. 

. Good general health. 

. A forward-looking and optimistic mental attitude. 
. Training in English. 

. A knowledge of common business customs. 

. Facility in the use of figures. 


Num WwW DN 


With these as a foundation, a high-school grad- 
uate should be able to cultivate an expert acquaint- 
ance with shorthand in from six months to a year. 

Secretarial work.—While simple stenography is a 
first stepping-stone to an executive position, the 
step is usually taken through the office of private 
secretary. This position is much larger than that 
of stenographer, but a good secretary must have 
shorthand at his command. A government pamphlet 
outlines the duties: 


The trained secretary relieves the executive of all de- 
tail by keeping him informed as to important happenings 
in the business world that may be of particular interest; 
by making notes of appointments and preparation of 
papers and speeches; by standing between him and the 

122 


THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS 


public, when the demands upon his time make it neces- 
sary to deny requests for interviews without in any way 
offending those who are refused; by attending conferences, 
and making notes on important points; by arranging for 
transportation and hotel accommodations in connection 
with traveling, and, in every way, by keeping the execu- 
tive’s time free for the more important managerial re- 
sponsibilities devolving upon him. 


Why are stenographers and secretaries who are 
out-and-out Christians so much in demand? Is 
it not because their position is, first and last, one 
of trust? Which man is likely to be more trust- 
worthy, the one who is trying to be like Christ, 
or the one who is quite indifferent? This is a 
question that only you can answer for yourself. 
It is a question that you cannot avoid answering 
if you would be your best self. 

The Federal Civil Service.—The greatest em- 
ployer in America is the United States government. 
If you are inclined toward clerical work, or, indeed, 
toward any other occupation, it would be prudent 
for you to look up the possibility of the federal 
service. Five hundred thousand persons are em- 
ployed by Uncle Sam in this service, about one 
tenth of them in Washington, forty thousand 
appointments being made every year. Before you 
apply for a position, however, be certain to look up 
the possibilities of promotion in that department. 

Detailed information may be secured from “The 
United States Civil Service Commission, Wash- 
ington, D. C.”’ 

The army, navy and marine corps.—The army, 
navy, and marine corps offer practically as many 
types of vocations as are found in civil life. If 

123 


OUT INTO LIFE 


you are at all inclined to serve your country in any 
of these “‘services,’’ write to your congressman. He 
will tell you what advantages they afford and how 
to enlist in them. 

Now and then a scandal is unearthed in one of 
our government departments which reveals the 
plot of a group of men without Christian conscience 
who have been stealing money from the public 
treasury. They are more dangerous to the nation 
than an invading army. Our only deliverance is 
to keep our national offices filled with honest, God- 
fearing men. Young men hurry to enlist in the 
service of their country in time of war: are you 
needed any less in time of peace? 


For DIscussion 


1. Girard, the wealthy merchant, once ordered a clerk 
to perform a task the clerk thought unchristian. 
The clerk refused and was discharged. The next 
day Girard highly recommended him ‘as a man 
of principle” to another merchant. Did the clerk 
do right? Was he loyal? Was Girard justified in 
discharging him? 

. At one time there was debate whether every: person 
should be taught to write. Has the time come 
now when every person should be taught to write 
shorthand ? 

3. Would you rather serve your country in the army or 

navy? Why? Can a man in ordinary civil life 
be of quite so much service to his country as a 
military or naval man? 

4. A stenographer recently discovered that his chief 
was defrauding his clients. What should he have 
done about it? 

s. Of a bookkeeper and stenographer, which has the 

124 


iS) 


THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS 


better chance for promotion in a bank? in a de- 
partment store? in a factory? 

6. Many of the speeches made by public men are written 
by their secretaries. Is this a justifiable practice? 


For FurtTHER STUDY 


4 


7. Jesus on many occasions condemned the ‘‘scribes.”’ 
Why? Were they like our scribes or clerks? Are 
clerks likely to become men who do not think for 
themselves? 

8. Interview a bookkeeper and make a list of the details 
for which he is responsible. 

9. Interview a stenographer and do the same. 

10. Where would you do better work, as the manager of 
a large office force or as the executive’s private 
secretary. Give reasons in detail. 


For REFERENCE 


Boy Scouts, Business, pages 1-13, 20-23. 

Giles and Giles, pages 134-139. 

Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 242-246, for 
clerical work; pages 256-263, for civil service. 

S. S. Center, pages 42-45, ‘“The Mail Order House.’ 


125 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE HUMAN SIDE 


Tue human race would be foolish to do anything 
which would cripple and wear out its own members, 
but each of us becomes so interested in building 
up his own business and increasing the size of 
his own pay envelope that we often forget to ask 
whether other people are getting a fair living. 

Too much work.—One of our great industries 
from its beginning employed men in certain kinds 
of labor for twelve hours a day and seven days a 
week. But of late the leaders in the industry have 
reached the conclusion that so many hours of 
work per week make too severe a strain upon men 
for their own good and do not leave them proper 
time for recreation, sleep, and the duties of their 
own homes. 

If you go into industry, you will have the priv- 
ilege of casting your lot with those men who are 
lending their influence to outlaw the idea that 
things may be produced at the expense of men. 

Child labor.—It is not only men who are some- 
times worked too hard for their good. Says Harold 
Cary: 

I have seen seven-year-old boys and girls who work 
regularly ten hours a day on their hands and knees in 
New Jersey; fourteen-year-olds, in Pennsylvania coal 
mine breakers; boys and girls in New England cotton 
mills; in Wisconsin factories; in New York tenements.? 





1 Courtesy of Collier’s The National Weekly. 
126 


THE HUMAN SIDE 


Collier’s Weekly points out that 


This nationwide crime of child labor is not dying away. 
Why? Because stupid and greedy parents want to work 
their kids, and careless employers let them do it. The 
last census (1920) found 1,060,858 children between ten 
and fifteen at work. Children at work, but under ten, 
were not counted.’ 


If you are to fight the child labor evil, you will 
have to do more than make an inquiry regarding 
the age of those who apply to you for employment. 
You will be called to make your influence felt in 
the community outside of your business, to teach 
parents the value of education for their children 
and to convince them that they are committing 
a crime when they keep their children from healthy 
play and sufficient sleep. 

Too little work and too small a wage.—Perhaps, 
when you know these people at first hand, you 
will find that the trouble lies deeper yet—that 
some of these poor folk are so often out of employ- 
ment or, when they are employed, get such a miser- 
able wage that they are virtually forced to put 
their children to work. You will certainly study 
how to arrest the periodic scourge of unemploy- 
ment, and possibly you will conclude that wages in 
general ought to be higher. 

Industrial casualties.—Over twenty-three hun- 
dred men were killed in the coal mines in 1919, 
almost five hundred in the metal mines, and about 
seven thousand on the railroads; and yet there 
is no good reason why there should have been a 





2 Ibid. 
127 


OUT INTO LIFE 


single such death. And as for injuries, more or 
less serious, industry is full of them. 

Within the last years the responsible men in 
industry have been making their mines and mills 
accident-proof. ‘The fly-wheel that was formerly 
exposed and monthly took its toll of broken legs 
or arms or necks is now sheathed. The miner has 
his perfected detector for poisonous gases. Pro- 
tective devices‘of all sorts are being used increas- 
ingly. 

Perhaps even more shocking than the accidents 
are the diseases due to the dust-laden and chemically 
poisonous air in some factories and mines.  Lin- 
gering and terrible plagues visit the men who work, 
unprotected, in lead paint, or over an emery wheel, 
or at any of a score of other tasks. But good blow- 
ers will chase the poisons from the air and are now 
used for dangerous occupations by reputable man- 


ufacturers. Other inventions have reduced other: 


abuses, but there is much yet to be done in im- 
proving conditions in some quarters. You yourself 
may be the means, when you have made your 
place in the world, of saving the lives of thousands. 

Spiritual casualties.—You may have read the 
oft-quoted words of Carlyle: 


Tt is not to die, or even to die hungry, that makes men 
wretched. But it is to live miserable, we know not why; 
to work sore and yet gain nothing. It is to die slowly all 
our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Injustice. 


Have workers in the business and industrial 
world never impressed you with the dullness of 
their lives?—you with your bubbling, enthusiastic 
youth? Is it nothing to you? To give men a 

128 


THE HUMAN SIDE 


sense of dignity, of manhood!—to make these who 
work with you feel the usefulness, the grandness, 
the romance of their life! To do this is not only 
to bring joy and color into lives that are drab, 
but also to make life for yourself richer than ever 
you guessed. 

It is hard to see how you or anyone can do this 
without calling upon religion. Here is the story, 
told by Charles W. Wood, of a man who took the 
dullness out of the lives of his business associates 
by treating them as brothers: 


Arthur Nash was president of the A. Nash Company. 
There were twenty-nine employees. They were working 
for starvation wages, and still the company was not 
making a profit. Mr. Nash decided he would start in 
paying Christian wages instead. But what were Chris- 
tian wages? The only answer he could arrive at was the 
Golden Rule: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. The 
twenty-nine were notified of wage increases ranging from 
fifty to three hundred per cent. 

In two months the firm had an excellent balance in the 
bank! Jt had done three times as much business as it had 
done tn the same period the year before! Only one addi- 
tional employee had been hired !3 


In 1918 the A. Nash Company did only $132,- 
190.20 worth of business all told. Since the begin- 
ning of the Golden Rule period in ror9, this figure 
has increased to many millions. The company now 
employs thousands of workers and is the largest 
business of its kind in the United States. Its rise 
is the amazement of the business world. 





$ Courtesy of Collier’s The National Weekly. 
129 


OUT INTO LIFE 


“Do you think your scheme would work with the 
damned aliens and Bolsheviks in our shop?” Mr. Nash 
is often asked. 

“Tt won’t work with aliens,” is his answer, ‘‘and it 
won’t work with those who are damned. It will work 
only with brothers and sisters in the human family.’’ 


b 


Competition and cooperation.—There are two well- 
established methods of dealing with competitors. 

A great railroad company once operated a line 
of boats between certain ports on the Pacific Coast. 
Their fares were high. An independent company 
started in competition, with a more reasonable 
schedule of fares. The railroad company, perceiv- 
ing they were being beaten, lowered their fares to 
almost nothing. They could do this temporarily 
because of their large resources. Traffic came 
their way again, and the independent line failed. 
Then the rates went up again to the original figures! 

This is one way of handling competitors—to 
crowd them out of business. It is a survival of 
the fittest—if I do not eat you, you will eat me. 

There is another method. Recently young Doctor 
Banting discovered a way to mitigate the dreadful 
disease of diabetes. People suffering from this 
illness, many of whom are wealthy, would give all 
the wealth they have, to be cured. Had the doctor 
made his treatment a secret, he could have become 
a millionaire in a year. What did the fool do? 
He did what any doctor would have done—told 
all his competitors about his discovery so that it 
could be used by anybody anywhere. Paul called 
himself a “‘fool in Christ’”’ for about the same reason. 





‘ Courtesy of Collier’s The National Weekly. 
130 


THE HUMAN SIDE 


We might all wish that modern business had in 
it more “fools” of this sort. 

But face the facts. Such an act is possible in 
the medical world, for from its beginning this has 
been part of the ethics of the profession. But in 
the business world there is no such precedent of 
generosity. If, in the jungle, the deer discovered 
secret means of protecting himself against the 
tiger, should he tell the tiger all about it? There 
are, indubitably, men in the business world who 
know nothing better than the way of the tiger. 
If a man in business invents a device, he has it 
patented to prevent others from copying what is 
rightfully his own. No doctor would patent and 
exploit what was discovered by a fellow prac- 
titioner, but there are plenty of men in business 
who would capture another’s invention if they 
could, patent it, and make a fortune on it, even 
if, as has sometimes been the case, the inventor 
himself went to the poorhouse. Has not the in- 
ventor to consider his own family? Must he not 
protect himself, so that he will not be hunted down 
by tigerish competitors? 

You are beset by a real dilemma. To treat 
your competitors as you would like to be treated 
yourself, or to combat them, lest they annihilate 
you—this is the problem that confronts a Chris- 
tian business man every day of his life. 

From this conflict no one man may deliver him- 
self, for its roots are grounded in the world around 
him. He cannot move faster toward the Golden 
Rule than that world, but he can exert his strength 
in pushing that world in the right direction. His 
task is to get the rest to act with him, to lift the 

131 


OUT INTO LIFE 


ethics of his whole society to the plane, say, of 
medicine. To do this he will contribute his energies 
where the Christian spirit is growing up in the 
community at large—in reform movements, in the 
various business clubs and trade associations organ- 
ized for good will, in the churches, and, at every 
opportunity, by word and example, in his own 
business. 

In the frontier town every business man had to 
carry a gun to protect himself. Many good men 
saw this practice was contrary to the Christian 
spirit and wanted to give it up. But if any one 
of them had put by his gun, he would have been 
held up the next day and robbed. All they could 
do was to work toward converting the community 
as a whole to the idea of disarming, and to show 
their own eagerness to give up their guns when the 
rest did. Finally they won the day. 

So the dilemma of ideals versus circumstances 
in which every man finds himself must be solved 
in the business world. That world is in process 
of development, gradually being educated by its 
Christian members. 

Be not impatient! Work toward the more per- 
fect day, and meanwhile thank God that you have 
the spirituality to feel the dilemma. Your inward 
revolt at being compelled by present circumstances 
to obey the law of the jungle is your mark of divin- 
ity. The brute accepts that law as final. You 
follow the gleam! 


For DIscussIon 


1. Is there any hope of preventing unemployment per- 
manently ? ? 


132 


Io. 


G. W. 
D. W. Clark, Child Labor and the Social Conscience. 


THE HUMAN SIDE 


. Do you not think that a man with the business ability 


of Mr. Nash would succeed whether or not he 
organized his business according to the Golden 
Rule? 


. Had you been a director of the railroad company 


which operated the boats on the Pacific Coast, 
how would you have voted to meet the competi- 
tion of the independent company? 


. Who are likely to be more useful in solving the 


human problems of industry—the young men or 
the old men? Why? 


. Since in our free country men may choose their own 


place of work, does an industry do wrong in hav- 
ing a twelve-hour-a-day schedule for labor? Why? 


. Are Rotary Clubs and similar organizations worth 


the money they cost? Why? 


For FurtTHER STUDY 


. Read what Jesus said in Matthew 5. 39-42. Can 


business men apply these principles in modern 
competition? If so, how? Does our chapter give 
you any light on the matter? 


. What is the present status of child labor reform in 


the country? In your State? 


. Write a synopsis of the life of John Joseph Eagan, of 


Atlanta, or of some other man who has made a 
notable contribution on the human side of busi- 
ness or industry. 

Does business or industry appeal to you as a field 
for life-work? Perhaps you are undecided. Think 
carefully and write down what attracts and what 
repels you in this field. 


For REFERENCE 
Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapter XVII. 


133 


CHAPTER XV 


THE “PROFESSIONS”—RESEARCH 
AND ART 


HuMAN beings, to live a complete life, need not 
only things but ideas. 

The professions.—The occupations which deal 
mainly with ideas are called professions. The 
doctor, the lawyer, the minister, and other pro- 
fessional men are each experts in one department 
of the world’s ideas. Nonprofessional men of 
course use ideas in their business, and professional 
men are concerned with things, but in general the 
stock in trade of the nonprofessional man is material, 
and of the professional, mental. This is no invidi- 
ous distinction, things being as necessary as ideas, 
and ideas as things. 

The research worker.—One of the discoverers of 
ideas is the scientist. In the words of J. Arthur 
Thomson: 


Science reads the secret of the distant star and anato- 
mizes the atom; foretells the date of the comet’s return 
and predicts the kinds of chickens that will hatch from 
a dozen eggs; discovers the laws of the wind that bloweth 
where it listeth and reduces to order the disorder of 
disease. Science is always setting forth on Columbus 
voyages, discovering new worlds and conquering them by 
understanding.! 


1From Outline of Science, by J. Arthur Thomson. Courtesy of 
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Publishers, New York and London. 


134 


RESEARCH AND ART 


The Great War, our commercial prosperity, and 
many other matters which to-day seem to us to 
be the most momentous circumstances of our era, 
will doubtless, one hundred years hence, have faded 
into insignificance in comparison to our contem- 
porary scientific discoveries. 

Science may be roughly divided into five branches: 
geology and astronomy, or the study of the earth 
and the heavenly bodies; chemistry and physics, or 
the study of matter; biology, or the study of life; 
psychology, or the study of the mind; and soci- 
ology, or the study of human society. Science may 
be interpreted to be synonymous with research and 
so cover the whole field of scholarship, including, if 
sociology is broadly construed, even such subjects 
as history, economics, and biblical criticism. 

The general procedure of the scientist, whatever 
his field may be, is always the same. His first step 
is to get the facts. Isaac Newton’s discovery of 
the law of gravitation was preceded by a thorough 
observation of the motions of planets. This work 
had been done for him by Kepler. 

The scientist’s second step is to arrange the 
facts. This is a process of analysis and comparison. 
In this also Newton was indebted to Kepler, who 
had noted that each planet describes an elliptical 
orbit, and that the sun occupies one focus of the 
ellipse. 

The scientist’s third step to which all the others 
are preliminary is to draw the inferences arising 
from the facts in hand. Newton inferred that the 
sun and the planets attracted each other according 
to a certain law—which has ever since been asso- 
ciated with his name—that ‘every particle of 


135 


OUT INTO LIFE 


matter in the universe attracts every other particle 
with a force whose magnitude is directly as the 
product of the masses and inversely as the square 
of their distance from one another.”’ 

The scientist’s fourth step is to verify his general- 
izations. Newton was in constant correspondence 
with the astronomer-royal in order to test his law 
with every new and refined measurement of the 
planetary orbits. 

Rewards.—There is a romance about science. 
Here is Walter Reed, just after he had discovered 
the cause of yellow fever, writing, ‘‘I could shout 
for very joy that heaven has permitted me to 
make this discovery.’”? What would one not give 
to be a Charles Darwin, who imparted to the world 
an idea which has revolutionized all thinking! 

Few of us will achieve such greatness, but even 
the humblest scientist may have the essential 
rewards of his profession. Chiefest of all is his 
chance to pursue truth, live with it, and make it 
prevail. 

The world in general is so much interested in 
things that it does not pay large wages to those 
who are devoted to the discovery of ideas. Per- 
haps it is for this reason that so few men in our 
country are pursuing the vocation of pure science, 
unyoked to any more lucrative profession. 

The great universities provide a living for a few 
research workers whose ability has been proved. 
Some of our large industrial establishments do the 
same: the rubber companies, dye works, electrical 
concerns, camera manufacturers, each have their 
staff of experimenters, and among these are a few 
distinguished scientists who are given free rein to 

136 


RESEARCH AND ART 


work out their own ideas. The federal government 
and such institutions as the Rockefeller Foundation 
for research have also built up similar experimental 
departments. 

But generally the profession of pure science is 
yoked with another which pays better—most often 
with teaching. Many believe that research should 
always be combined with teaching, for the stim- 
ulus that each lends the other. When a man begins 
his career as a teacher his courses are usually so 
elementary that there can be little connection 
between them and his research work. He must 
make the latter an avocation for off-hours. A 
man who has achieved standing as a professor, 
however, may usually plan his courses to corre- 
spond with his research. 

In the same way the industrial scientist must 
at first guide himself during working hours by 
the arbitrary demands of his company. When 
Charles P. Steinmetz came to America in _ his 
twenties, knowing hardly a word of English, alone, 
penniless, he found employment with the General 
Electric Company and did what he was asked to 
do. Five years later, sure of his loyalty and judg- 
ment, the concern made him chief expert and per- 
mitted him wide latitude in research. 

If you have enjoyed your courses in subjects 
which require observation, such as elementary 
physics; if you have not been one of those who 
“abhor mathematics’; if you have something of 
the ability to distinguish between essentials and 
nonessentials; and if you really like to study, you 
should doubtless give consideration to a life of 
constructive scholarship of some sort. 


137 


OUT INTO LIFE 


There are, however, so few opportunities for 
pure research that, unless you have independent 
means, you should fit yourself, if science is your 
dream, for teaching, or industry, or some other 
kindred livelihood. 

There can be no such thing as a scientific career 
for you or anyone else without preparation. Edison 
cut hours from his normal time for sleep, to study. 
The quickest way to prepare is to take work in a 
good college and, if possible, graduate work in a 
school which specializes in the department of your 
choice. 

A generation ago it was believed by many that 
in order to become a good scientist a man must 
give up his religion. The number of unreligious 
scientists gave some weight to this opinion. To-day, 
however, by contrast, outstanding scientists are 
also outstanding men of religion. Robert Andrews 
Millikan, winner of the Nobel prize in science, 
himself a deeply religious man, has published a 
long list of other distinguished men of like con- 
victions, beginning with the names: 

Charles D. Walcott, President of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Henry Fairfield Osborn, Director of the American 
Museum of Natural History. 

Edward G. Conklin, head of the Biology Depart- 
ment of Princeton University. 

Religion and science are, in fact, in close coopera- 
tion. They both take it for granted that the world 
is an orderly unit made up of a number of parts. 
They come at the problem from opposite ends: 
science is interested in the parts, and out of them, 
as they are one by one discovered, is seeking to 

138 


RESEARCH AND ART 


build up a description of the whole; while religion 
is first of all interested in the Whole—in God, who 
is all and in all—and by the Whole it interprets 
the parts. Each supplements the other: a universe 
scientifically described in all its parts but not 
religiously interpreted in terms of God’s great 
purpose is worthless—a universe religiously inter- 
preted but not scientifically known is empty. 
There is a call as insistent for scientists to stand 
squarely for religion as for Christians to support 
the work of the scientists, the truth seekers. 

Art and literature.—There are many arts—music, 
painting, sculpture, architecture, town-planning, 
and others—but they have in common the aim of 
contributing beauty to the world. 

Rewards.—As in pure science, so in art, there 
is little or no financial return. Unless one happens 
to have inherited wealth, it is only in later years, 
when one’s name is made and one is comparatively 
secure, that he can cut loose entirely and devote 
himself to unalloyed art. 

The artist, however, also has the expedient of 
entering a paying profession akin to his own in 
which a portion of his time is left him to pursue 
his passion. Teaching is possible. Many of the 
greatest artists of the opera and concert stage 
continue teaching even when they are in their 
prime. 

Artists can usually make an alliance with some 
form of profitable business. The pen and brush 
artist has a field in illustrating books or drawing 
cartoons. The musician or the actor may put 
himself in the care of a theatrical manager, and 
though this means that he must keep his eyes 


139 


OUT INTO*EIPE 


open to public demands, it also means that he 
will have some chance to follow his art. 

“Three fourths of my calling has been and is 
drudgery,’ says a musician. Since the artist works 
through a medium—paint, voice, instrument, or 
some other—he must go through the long appren- 
ticeship of mastering that medium, and even after 
he has made himself master of it, he must continue 
practice. Victor D. Brenner, designer of the Lincoln 
penny, devoted five years in Paris to continuous 
study. And even when the artist has achieved a 
technique, he must maintain it by continued exer- 
cise. Paderewsky has said that to be at his best 
he must practice on the piano four hours a day. 
“Tf I miss a day, I notice it—two days, my wife 
notices it—three days, all the world notices it!” 

Stevenson said no one could be an artist unless 
art was ‘‘the ardor of his blood’’; but if you do 
love one of the arts so much that it is a form of 
religion to you, as it was to Burne-Jones, you are 
doubtless called to take it up. H. Walford Davies 
quotes Burne-Jones exclaiming: 


That was an awful thought of Ruskin’s, that artists 
paint God for the world. There’s a lump of greasy pig- 
ment at the end of Michael Angelo’s hogbristle brush, 
and by the time it has been laid on the stucco there is 
something there that all men with eyes recognize as 
divine. Think of what it means. It is the power of 
bringing God into the world—making God manifest. 


Literature.—There is one form of art to which, 
at one time or another, almost everyone aspires. 
If you like books and like to write, if you possess 
that craving for perfection which makes you un- 

140 


RESEARCH AND ART 


happy as you write until you have thought of 
just the proper words and construction for the 
thought you are expressing, you may be a writer 
of literature. 

Your first years must doubtless be spent in some 
profession apart from literature though useful to 
it. Mark Twain was a Mississippi River steamboat 
pilot. Many modern novelists began life as cub 
reporters for the metropolitan press. 

Only the man who has something to say can 
write real literature. George Bernard Shaw is, in 
general, right: 


He who has nothing to assert has no style and can 
have none: he who has something to assert will go as 
far in power of style as its momentousness and his con- 
viction will carry him. 


This is the reason religion and real writing are 
so closely bound together. The world’s master- 
pleces—the ‘‘Tliad,’’ the Gospel of Luke, the ‘“‘Divine 
Comedy,” and the rest—which one is not shot 
through with the sense of God, with the knowledge 
that there is destiny at stake in human life? Ernest 
Poole had the wealth to become a loafer. He 
mingled with the underfolk of our land. He caught 
their spirit. He began to share the sympathy of 
God for his oppressed children. Then he began 
to write literature. 


For Discussion 


1. In which of the five branches of science, geology and 
astronomy, physics-chemistry, biology, psychology, 
or sociology, would you say that the greatest ad- 
vances are being made to-day? 


141 


Io. 


HOUT NG Gabber 


. Which man serves his generation better—the indus- 


trial scientist or the teaching scientist? Give the 
reason for your view. 


. Which would you say America is best known for— 


her science or her art? England? France? Italy? 
Greece? 


. Do motion pictures educate us in art? Sunday news- 


papers? most novels? most theaters? jazz? ordi- 
nary architecture? 


. Would you call Christian living an art or a science? 


On what ground? 


. Is a writer’s popularity a test of his greatness? Is 


there any other test? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


. Read the first chapter of Genesis. How do you 


make this description agree with modern science? 
Ask your minister. 


. What should a man who has made a scientific dis- 


covery do when he finds another man claiming 
the same discovery? What did Leibniz and New- 
ton do? Darwin and Wallace? Adams and Le- 
Verrier? 


. What is the aim of the American Association for the 


Advancement of Science? of the National Acad- 
emy of Design? What does each do to accomplish 
its aim? 

Give several reasons that lead you to think your 
own temperament is scientific rather than artistic 
or vice versa. 


For REFERENCE 


E. E. Slosson, Creative Chemistry. Any chapter. 
Boy Scouts, Architecture and Sculpture. 
Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 33-35, 37-39, 


for architecture. 


Giles and Giles, pages 220-224, for art and music. 


142 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE ENGINEER, MASTERER OF THE 
FORCES OF NATURE 


THE daily papers and magazines are full of the 
feats of engineers. We read, for instance, that 
the Lincoln cut-off of the Union Pacific Railroad 
across Great Salt Lake proposed by the engineers 
and at first opposed by some of the directors of 
the road as costing too much, saved sixty thousand 
dollars the first year after it was completed. We 
read that in late years engineers have been respon- 
sible for the subways in New York and other cities, 
for the bridges over our great rivers, for the elec- 
trification of many steam roads, and for our vast 
highway improvements. We are not surprised that 
William A. Wheatley, an expert in vocational 
guidance, reports that he has been “‘plied with 
more questions concerning engineering vocations 
than any other life-work.” 

The different kinds.—Long ago there were only 
two kinds of engineers, the military engineer, who 
built fortifications and machines of war, and the 
civil engineer. ‘The work of the latter has now 
become so varied that it is divided among a number 
of specialists. The man with the title “‘Civil Engi- 
neer”’ to-day usually confines himself to designing, 
constructing, and maintaining roads, bridges, tun- 
nels, canals, railroads, lighthouses, irrigation sys- 
tems, and river and harbor improvements. 

The mechanical engineer designs machinery of all 


143 


_ OUT INTO LIFE 


kinds except electrical, and supervises the con- 
struction, installation, and operation of it. 

The electrical engineer designs, manufactures, 
installs, and operates electrical apparatus large and 
small. He is an expert in telegraphy, telephony, 
and radio telegraphy, and in all types of electric 
traction and power transmission. 

The automotive engineer is an expert in the 
design, manufacture, and operation of self-propel- 
ling machines, such as automobiles, aeroplanes, and 
motor boats. 

The marine engineer plans and supervises the 
building of ships. 

The work of the mining engineer, the municipal 
or sanitary engineer, and the chemical engineer or 
industrial chemist has already been mentioned. 

The engineer takes the ideas given him by the 
scientist and artist and applies them to problems 
of construction on a comparatively large scale. 
An engineer, for instance, takes the formula for 
gravity discovered by a scientist and the outlines 
of an arch designed by an artist, and uses them 
in building a bridge. Engineering is one form of 
applied science and art. | 

Plainly the engineer fills a need. He not only 
makes the larger material equipment for our ciy- 
ilization, but he also is an expert in preventing 
our larger losses. Along both of these avenues 
future serviceableness stretches out before him 
limitless. ‘‘We have not enough engineers,” says 
Thomas A. Edison. 

Witness the preventable loss of property in the 
United States alone. Last year there was a wastage 
about our mines, about our farms, in our forests, 


144 


THE ENGINEER 


and in our cities, estimated by conservative stat- 
isticilans at billions of dollars. This means work 
for engineers. 

And the projects already begun for nationwide, 
Statewide, and municipal improvement in material 
facilities—the proposed linking together of the 
central generating stations in giant reservoirs of 
electrical energy, for example—will need engineers 
and more engineers. 

Yet there are probably too many young men 
looking toward engineering as a life-work at the 
present time! Persons who have investigated say 
that the coming supply of men is even greater 
than the demand. You should, therefore, think 
twice before electing this profession. If your heart 
is set on it, and you have an abundance of the 
personal qualifications needed for it, that is one 
matter, for enthusiastic and able men are needed 
in the most crowded of professions; but if you have 
only a slight leaning toward the work and no out- 
standing talent for it, it will hardly be a Christian 
act for you to enter engineering. If your aim is 
to live and help live, look further. 

some of the rewards.—The engineer, however, 
who is really performing needed service has that 
greatest of rewards, the knowledge that he is living 
according to the will of God and for the good of man. 

Again, work which is creative brings its own 
reward. A young man, Russell S. Walcott, who 
understands engineering, also understands this 
secret: 


You can see your own personality in your work always. 
There is a delightful inventiveness in it. The satisfaction 


145 


_ OUT INTO LIFE 


is tremendous of having a building really develop into a 
physical thing from a picture you have formed in your 
mind. I don’t believe there is any compensation equal 
to it in business where the satisfaction of a result obtained 
is-‘measured mostly by a financial return in some form or 
other. 


Good engineers have a good income but do not 
as a rule make fortunes. Most engineers find their 
work delightfully varied. When a structure is 
finished, it is finished for good, and a new task 
may be taken up. The work is healthy. Most 
engineers must spend a good deal of their time out 
of doors. 

One of the chief advantages of the profession is 
the chance to cultivate and keep mental health. 
As Gano Dunn says: 


The engineer’s intellectual relations with his subject 
involve a contact with nature and her laws that breeds 
straight thinking and directness of character, and for 
these the world is constantly according him a higher and 
more honorable place. 


The nomadic life many engineers must lead is 
an obvious disadvantage. It offers more adventure, 
but to a certain extent it withdraws one from the 
good things found only in a community—neighbors, 
long friendships, the privilege of serving in offices 
of church or civil government, and the rest. 

The young man who contemplates engineering 
should be interested in how things are made. He 
will have enjoyed his chemistry and physics. He 
will have taken real pleasure in his mathematical 
problems. 

The professions all require long preparation, and 

146 


THE ENGINEER 


engineering is no exception. After high school 
must come college, and after college a technical 
school. Sometimes the college and technical train- 
ing may be combined. 

The ethics of engineering.—The code of ethics 
in engineering is, in general, higher at the present 
time than that in ordinary business; and it is not 
yet perfectly certain whether engineering, being so 
young an occupation, is to maintain its standards 
at this “professional” level or allow them to sink 
to the lower one. 

Questions of conduct are constantly arising. 
Should one engineer, for instance, attempt to under- 
bid another for employment by reducing his usual 
charges? This kind of procedure is the order of 
the day in the business world, but in the genuine 
professions—medicine, law, and the rest—so com- 
pletely does the spirit of guild-brotherhood for 
public service dominate, that man-against-man 
competition for gain is not tolerated. Which way 
will engineering go? | 

The danger that engineering may go the business 
way is due largely to the fact that many engineers 
finally work into the business end of enterprises 
in which they have previously served simply as 
professional advisers. Upon such men, as one of 
the engineering journals puts it, “the exigencies 
of selling are so constantly forced that it produces 
in their circle a commercial atmosphere quite at 
variance with strict professional views.”’ 

This “commercial atmosphere” means, in plain 
words, money-getting. ‘There is, of course, nothing 
wrong in the legitimate making of money, but 
when this motive outweighs every other it is the 


147 


. OUT INTO LIFE 


end of the professional and the Christian spirit alike. 

If you go into engineering, it is at this point 
you may make your influence felt. Be loyal to the 
best traditions of the profession. Lend your weight 
to keeping it free from the money craze. Help the 
other men of principle to win it to the service of 
Christ. 

Engineering often takes men into places of 
unusual temptation. The mining engineer may find 
the mouth of his mine a gambling hell. The civil 
engineer may be called away on a job a hundred 
miles from home and the restraining influences of 
his community. In such situations it is sheer 
character that counts. 

The engineer is often the best-educated man in 
a community. He is looked up to by all because 
he is the man who can do things. No one is in 
a more favorable position to influence the life of 
those about him. There is story after story of 
strong-muscled, red-blooded, big-spirited engineers 
who have been rocks of spiritual strength and 
springs of inspiration to their workers, their asso- 
ciates, their neighbors—and even to their com- 
petitors. 

Such a man was James Nasmyth, the engineer 
who developed the famous Bridgewater foundry at 
Patricroft, England, and invented the steam ham- 
mer. The sketches he had drawn for his hammer 
were not put into use immediately, and while they 
were still in his notebook, unpatented, two French 
engineers, visiting his plant during his absence, 
copied them. He knew nothing of this until, two 
years later, he found a hammer, constructed from 
his designs, in actual operation in the French 

148 


* 


THE ENGINEER 


foundry. Instead of flying into a rage of jealousy 
that competitors had materialized his plans sooner 
than he, he was delighted at the successful achieve- 
ment of his brother engineers, and when he learned 
that the machine was often out of order, he would 
not rest until he had remedied every defect for 
them. This was the generous, Christlike spirit 
which made him a beloved leader among men. 
Such a man also is George Washington Goethals, 
the engineer who built the Panama Canal. Jesus’ 
Golden Rule was his law all through the long years 
of digging, digging, digging. Once a week, as 
Mary R. Parkman writes, he would keep open 
house for all his workmen—and their families: 


You might see foregathered there the most interesting 
variety of human types that could be found together 
anywhere in the world—English, Spanish, French, Ital- 
ians, turbaned coolies from India, and American Negroes. 
One man thinks that his foreman does not appreciate his 
good points; another comes to present a claim for an 
injury received on a steam-shovel. Mrs. A. declares 
with some feeling that she is never given as good cuts of 
meat as Mrs. B. enjoys every day. 

“Of course, many of the things are trivial and even 
absurd,” said the colonel; “but if somebody thinks his 
little affair important, of course it is—to him. And that 
is the point, isn’t it?” 

“He is the squarest boss I ever worked for,” declared 
one of the locomotive engineers.! 


Such a man also was Alexander Murdoch Mackay, 
the engineer who brought Christian civilization to 
the heart of Africa. In 1876 the African explorer 





‘From Heroes of To-Day, by Mary R. Parkman. Used by per- 
mission of The Century Company, publishers. 


149 


_OUT INTO LIFE 


Stanley appealed for missionaries to teach Chris- 
tianity to the king and people of Uganda. Mackay, 
a trained engineer, started for the field with seven 
others. Two of them were murdered; others died; 
Mackay was the only man of sufficient stamina 
to reach Uganda. During his fourteen years of 
residence there others came and had to leave. 
Mackay himself at one time was driven out, but 
he returned and held on. His engineering skill and 
his religious ardor being put to the service of the 
people about him, he soon became to them an 
embodiment of power, material and spiritual. When, 
a few months before Mackay’s death, Stanley met 
a number of the natives, desiring to tell him they 
were Christians, they could only describe themselves 
as ‘“‘Mackay’s children’—for “Mackay” was to 
them a kind of synonym for “‘Christ.’”?> Uganda’s 
splendid roads and bridges of to-day, as well as the 
happiness of Uganda’s people, are reminders of 
Uganda’s debt to its missionary engineer. 


For DIscussion 


1. Which has the world most need for to-day, the civil, 
mechanical, electrical, automotive, or chemical en- 
gineer? Why? 

2. If you could not go to a technical school, which 
would likely prove the more profitable in prepara- 
tion for a profession—the acquaintance of people 
already in the profession, or the reading of books 
on the subject? Give the reason for your answer. 

3. Some have said, ‘‘It was the engineers who won the 
Great War.” Do you agree? 

4. As a Christian engineer, would you consider it good 
ethics to advertise your services? Why? 

5. As a Christian engineer, if you found a brother engi- 

150 


THE ENGINEER 


neer doing faulty or fraudulent work for his client, 
should your loyalty to the profession prevent you 
from informing the client? 

6. In most engineering societies the question is con- 
tinually arising whether, on the one hand, stand- 
ards of membership shall be set up and all appli- 
cants rigidly excluded who do not meet them, in 
order that prestige may be created for the profes- 
sion such as medicine enjoys; or, on the other hand, 
membership shall be open to any man who is 
making his living by engineering, in order that he 
may be educated to higher personal standards by 
the influence of the men of stronger character in 
the society. How would you vote on the question? 


For FurtTHER Stupy 


7. In 2 Chronicles 26. 1-15 occurs one of the two ref- 
erences to engines in the Bible. Write an imagina- 
tive sketch of how a young man came to invent an 
“engine to shoot arrows.”’ 

8. To what factors do you attribute the success of 
George Westinghouse or any one of the engineers 
mentioned in the text? Illustrate. 

9. Name three of the engineering problems of your own 
or a neighboring city. How would an engineer’s 
religion help him to overcome them? 

10, Which one of the engineering professions makes the 
greatest appeal to you at the present time? Def- 
initely, why? 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 195-203. 
Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, Chapter XVI. 
Boy Scouts, Electricity. 


151 


CHAPTER XVII 


MEDICINE IN THE SERVICE OF 
HUMANITY 


Your working life, if it is of average length, will 
probably be twice as long as it would have been 
if you had lived three hundred years ago! For so 
much are you indebted to the physicians and sur- 
geons. Theirs has been and is the tremendous task 
of keeping the human race in health. They cure 
the sick and keep the well from being sick. 

Meeting a need.—Not long ago there appeared 
at the door of an American hospital in China a 
blind man led by his son. He had lived for thirty 
years in gathering darkness, as a citizen of a city 
of a quarter of a million people, but not one of his 
fellow citizens had been able to cure him of his 
blindness. He had tried all the temples, but the 
gods had not aided him. A young physician met 
him in the office, examined him, and at once, thanks 
to his education, discovered the man’s ‘trouble. 
The next morning he operated upon his eyes. In 
two weeks the man was walking away from the 
hospital, guided by the eyes which for years he had 
not used. What joy in that man’s heart! What 
gratitude! But the doctor who watched him leave 
says that the man’s joy could not compare with 
his own. 

The lives of doctors and surgeons both in this 
country and in other lands are made up of a suc- 
cession of such experiences. That there is need 

152 


MEDICINE IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY 


for physicians is sure: in the United States three 
millions of people are always seriously ill, and 
every day, it is said, there are seventeen hundred 
unnecessary deaths. Of the twenty million children 
in school to-day, two million will die, if the present 
condition continues, of tuberculosis. In the class 
from which the army is ETE one man in five 
suffers from syphilis. 

Modern doctors realize and are making the world 
realize that an ounce of prevention is worth many 
pounds of cure. They believe it to be a greater 
achievement to maintain a pure water supply than 
to cure any number of people of typhoid fever. 
They preach personal hygiene, and they work not 
only to check the spread of disease through the 
community but also to prevent the bequeathing of 
disease to our children and our children’s children. 

Perhaps you have read of the famous Kallikak 
family. Martin Kallikak, Jr., feeble-minded, mar- 
ried Rhoda Zabeth, normal, in 1803. Of their 
470 descendants, 143 have been feeble-minded; 33, 
sexually immoral; 24, alcoholics; 8, brothel-keepers; 
3, epileptic; 3, criminals—and 82 died in infancy. 
Modern medical care, which is concerned as much 
with the human race as a whole as its individual 
members, seeks to prevent such conditions as this. 

There are two general types of medical activity, 
that of the general practitioner and that of the 
specialist. In the smaller communities physicians 
must be prepared to deal with any type of accident 
or disease. In the cities the tendency is to special- 
ize on some particular disease or bodily ailment. 

Some disadvantages.—The difficulties of a phy- 
sician’s work are patent. If the practitioner is any 


153 


OUT INTO LIFE 


lover of his kind—and if he were not, he would 
hardly have entered the profession—he will find 
his contacts with the sick, not to say the dying, 
a mental and spiritual strain. What need for 
faith in his own heart!—for faith that God, in spite 
of all appearances to the contrary, cares for his 
people. 

The physical strain requires a robust constitu- 
tion. During an epidemic the doctor is allowed 
only time enough for sleeping and eating, and on 
any night he may be summoned from his sleep. 
He is out as often in foul weather as in fair, and 
continually he faces the danger of infection. 

In medicine, as in other professions, it takes no 
little time to establish oneself. After the shingle 
is hung out, a year or two of hard work and small 
income must be expected. 

Some rewards.—Do the advantages outweigh the 
disadvantages? Listen to what Addison H. Bissell, 
M.D., a young man who has been a practitioner 
for half a dozen years, has to say: 


The practice of medicine is to me a right enjoyable 
occupation. In fact, if it were not for an occasional inter- 
ruption of sleep, I would class it as fun rather than work. 
I enjoy the mere acquisition of knowledge, slight as has 
been my acquisition, and I thoroughly enjoy the detec- 
tive work necessary in applying this knowledge to a case. 
The irregular hours are an especial boon for me, for I 
detest a routine day. Practically every case is interesting, 
and the daily developments of almost any case are great 
for the growth of humility. I have ample time to study 
and play, as well as work. Too much work should be 
avoided, by a doctor especially, for, while it brings in 
the cash, it hinders one’s education. I cannot think of 


‘154 


MEDICINE IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY 


being anything but a doctor. My occupation is a rare 
one. It offers a livelihood at a ninety-eight per cent 
congenial work, with only your own conscience as boss. 
Sometimes I find him a harder one than the old man 
sitting in the mahogany-furnished room with ‘‘Private”’ 
on the door. Who but a country doctor—unless it is a 
country poet—can have a daily swim and round of golf 
all summer, and skate and play squash all winter? Would 
I change for a New York City bank job at twice my in- 
come? I would not. 


Surely there are few professions which give in 
greater measure the satisfaction of living and help- 
ing live. To be able to give people sight, hearing, 
health! To keep them in possession of vital strength! 
To give the race long life and vigor, and so a chance 
for happiness! How it must thrill a man to know 
that his profession, to quote the words of William 
Osler, “is distinguished by its singular beneficence’’: 


Search the scriptures of human achievement and you 
cannot find anything to equal in beneficence the intro- 
duction of anesthesia, sanitation, with all that it includes, 
and asepsis—a short half-century’s contribution toward 
the practical solution of the problems of human suffer- 
ing, regarded as eternal and insoluble. Not that we all 
live up to the highest ideals: far from it—we are only 
men. But we have ideals, which means much, and they 
are realizable, which means more. Of course there are 
Gehazis among us who serve for shekels, whose ears hear 
only the lowing of the oxen and the jingling of the guineas, 
but these are exceptions. The rank and file labor earn- 
estly for good, and self-sacrificing devotion animates our 
best work. 


The physician generally has a position of public 
confidence unequaled by any other person in the 


155 


OUT INTO LIFE 


community. What satisfaction to realize that 
the whole community trusts you! But be not 
misled: this trust is not given to all physicians, 
simply by virtue of their profession. It is inspired 
only by those who have proved themselves worthy. 

For most men the physician’s chance to see all 
types of people, and to see them when they are 
most themselves, without the veneer of their so- 
ciety manners, has its attraction. 

The income of a well-established practitioner is 
sufficient for himself and his family. Only a very 
few men in the profession win large financial rewards. 

Some qualifications.—A young man in high school 
or college may look forward to a medical career if 
he has a sound body and if he enjoys study, espe- 
cially the subjects prerequisite to a medical course, 
the natural sciences, drawing, and handwork. He 
must be keen in observation, though here he may 
improve himself by education. In general, he must 
be mentally alert. 

If he becomes a doctor, the day will never dawn 
in which he can say, “J am now completely edu- 
cated.” Every day he will be learning from his 
books and journals and from his_ professional 
brethren, for medicine is breaking new ground 
continually. 

The quality a man needs more than any other 
has already been suggested. Read the words of 
Dr. H. L. Smith, published in a government 
brochure: 


It goes without saying that the physician, because of 
his close relationship with his patients, must be of the 
highest moral character, in order to gain and retain the 


156 


MEDICINE IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY 


confidence of his patients. One great element of success 
is faithfulness to the patients one has. This means love 
for the work and enthusiasm over the idea of service to 
mankind. 


Upon what soil does ‘enthusiasm over the idea 
of service to mankind” grow? As surely as brother- 
hood depends upon common sonship that kind of 
enthusiasm finds its root and ground in what might 
be called companionship with God. Wilfred Gren- 
fell, who fitted out the first hospital ship to the 
North Sea fisheries and was the first trained phy- 
sician to go to the desperately needy thousands 
along the Labrador, had his first vision of useful- 
ness in a tent-meeting where Dwight L. Moody 
was calling young men to the service of the King 
of kings. Edward Livingston Trudeau, “the Be- 
loved Physician,’’ who made come true his dream 
of a great sanitorium at Saranac which should be 
the everlasting foe of tuberculosis, declared that 
his success in the treatment of his patients was ‘‘the 
victory of the Nazarene’’—his Consulting Physician. 

Preparation.—After college the candidate for 
medicine must take four years in a medical school, 
the first two of which are spent largely in the ana- 
tomical, physiological, pathological, pharmacological, 
and other laboratories, and the last two years in 
close contact with patients in dispensaries and 
hospitals. Then one more year or, as is more usual, 
a year and a half as an interne in a hospital and his 
course is completed. 

The faint-hearted will not endure so long an 
apprenticeship. But if you are to be such a servant 
of Christ as the many who in our cities and rural 


137 


,OUT INTO LIFE 


districts toil day and night to relieve suffering, 
then any preparation short of the best is insufficient. 

Dentistry—The only branch of medicine in 
which America is distinctly above the other nations 
of the world is dentistry. The dentist teaches 
people how to care for the mouth and remedies 
difficulties of the teeth and gums. 

The dentist must have all the skill of hand pos- 
sessed by the surgeon. His personality and character 
have the same bearing on his success as in the case 
of the physician. His ruling motive, stated in the 
first article of the Code of Ethics of the National 
Dental Association, is also service: 


The dentist should be ever ready to respond to the 
wants of his patrons, and should fully recognize the 
obligations involved in the discharge of his duties toward 
them. He should be temperate in all things, keeping 
both mind and body in the best possible health, that his 
patients may have the benefit of that clearness of judg- 
ment and skill which is their right. 


The historic aim.—The whole aim of the med- 
ical profession is made plain in the oath of Hip- 
pocrates. That oath has been taken by young 
men entering the profession for more than twenty 
centuries: 

I swear that according to my ability and judgment I 
will keep this oath and stipulation. I will follow that 
system of regimen which, according to my best judg- 
ment, I consider best for my patients, and I will abstain 
from whatever is injurious. Into whatever houses I 
enter I will go for the advantage of the sick. With pur- 
ity and holiness will I pass my life and practice my art. 


Is it surprising that Christ was a physician? 
158 


Nur 


Io. 


MEDICINE IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY 


For Discussion 


. Do you believe there is any future for eugenics? 


Why? 


. Should the state be allowed to vaccinate all school 


children, even against their parents’ wishes and 
their own? Upon what ground do you hold your 
opinion? 


. Is it all right for a doctor to advertise? 
. Should a doctor on any occasion disclose informa- 


tion a patient has given him in professional con- 
fidence? 


. To save a patient’s life, should a doctor deceive him? 
. Should a doctor have different prices for different 


patients? 


For FuRTHER STUDY 


. One of the Old Testament authors was a physician, 


and so also was one of the New Testament authors. 
What books did they write? Who was Gehazi, to 
whom Dr. Osler refers? 


. Interview your doctor on the subject, ‘“What per- 


sonal qualities make a good physician?” and then 
write up the interview as a reporter would. 


. Find out what attitude the medical profession is 


taking to the prohibition of alcohol as a beverage. 

Would you rather be a medical missionary or a prac- 
titioner at home? State the advantages on each 
side. 


For REFERENCE 


Boy Scouts, Public Health. 

Giles and Giles, pages 152-161. 

Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 278-282. 

L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter IX. 


159 


CHAPTER XVIII 


SOCIAL WORK: HELPING OTHERS TO 
HELP THEMSELVES 


SocriAL work, which is concerned with the well- 
being of people as members of the community in 
which they live, is one of the most recent of the 
applied sciences. 

The needs of city and country.—When the Rev. 
William S. Rainsford became rector at Saint 
George’s Church in New York City, he found a 
situation which would have discouraged the most 
optimistic. The old church, though large, was 
practically empty. It stood in a downtown district 
from which almost all the stronger and more help- 
ful members had moved away. There were still 
people in the neighborhood, but they were the 
poor, the foreign, the down-and-out. There were 
only two alternatives: either to move the church 
out into the suburbs whither the former, members 
had gone or to make the church a medium through 
which the remaining members could minister to 
the less fortunate of the neighborhood. Deciding 
upon the latter course, the church and the new 
rector made a great venture: they built a huge 
house for the welfare of the community. Here, 
and in the other buildings acquired later, the poor 
were aided in finding employment and, in cases of 
extreme need, were clothed and fed. Classes were 
established to teach the women the arts of dress- 
making, cooking, and home-building and the men 

160 


HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES 


the various crafts which would make them better 
bread-winners. Down-and-outers were given a 
friendly hand in the mission and shown that God’s 
world is one in which new opportunities are always 
opening, even to those who have previously failed. 
Lest others should fail in the same way, a system 
of religious and moral education, graded from in- 
fancy to youth, was established. So the problem 
of the city was met. 

The social problem is so evident in the cities 
that social service is sometimes thought of wholly 
as a city profession. There is truth, however, in 
the old saying: God makes the country; man, the 
city; and the devil, the village and small town. 
A county in one of our Eastern States was notorious 
for its dance halls, road houses, and other unwhole- 
some resorts. There was no organization in the 
county through which decent citizens could work 
to improve conditions. Finally the Young Men’s 
Christian Association sent a secretary there. By 
rallying the better element in every village he 
was able to establish centers where the people 
might meet under good influences. In one com- 
munity he used an abandoned church; in another, 
the town house; in others, the school buildings; 
and to all of them, certain evenings in the week, 
he drew the people by pleasant and profitable 
entertainment. And Christian ideals gradually 
found their way into the homes of the county. 
He formed clubs and classes of different ages to 
study the needs of the neighborhood. In every 
way, in short, he gave the people a sense of their 
own strength and organized them to use that 
strength to lift the moral level of their county. 

161 


, OUT INTOLEIRE 


He found one evil from which few counties are 
free—too much tenancy. Seventy per cent of the 
farmers rented their land. The tendency of the 
tenant farmer is not to spend money on the land 
he does not own but to allow the soil slowly to 
deteriorate—and then move on. The Y.M.C.A., 
secretary found that even the land nominally 
owned by the farmers was generally heavily mort- 
gaged, and so practically owned by the banks. He 
therefore set himself to teach the people how to 
raise better crops and how to market them less 
expensively. A county-wide cooperative society 
was founded and prosperity began to appear. And 
a few years later an observer competent to judge 
called the section ‘‘an almost ideal place to live 
and bring up children in.” 

Social work has almost no limits. The Boy Scout 
executive, the probation officer in a Juvenile Court, 
the worker among the foreign born—these and all 
others whose profession it is to better, by example 
and aid, the lives of those about them are social 
workers. 

Some specialized forms of service.—Most towns 
have a Bureau of Charities or some similar organ- 
ization in which the charitable societies of the 
community—the District Nurse Association, the 
Hospital Aid Society, the Playground Guild, the 
Poor Commission, and all others—are represented. 
Through the Bureau they all cooperate to meet 
the town’s problems as a whole. They discuss the 
work which needs to be done, divide it, and each 
assumes responsibility for a part of it. As the 
Bureau grows in strength the several organizations 
which compose it may give up their identity and 

162 


HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES 


become departments of the single enterprise. The 
aim is unity of effort—to prevent duplications and 
omissions. When there is no such central organ- 
ization, certain families, for instance, may receive 
aid from half a dozen charities, and others, equally 
needy, none at all. The Bureau remedies such 
injustices. 

The social settlement is located in a city slum. 
Here the workers are engaged in the colossal task 
of changing the type of neighborhood from top 
to bottom. The work may include anything from 
running a bread-line to conducting a day nursery 
for the children of mothers who go out to work. 

A tenement house which averages two families 
to a room—and there are many such—can only be 
a plague-spot. What chance is there to cultivate 
good health where there is almost no ventilation, 
or decent habits where there is almost no privacy? 
To get more commodious apartments built and to 
persuade the slum families that in the long run 
it is cheaper to live less like rabbits in a burrow 
is the Herculean business of some social workers. 

Health and decent living for the poorer popula- 
tion are also the aim of those who frequent the 
lobbies of legislative bodies to push for the estab- 
lishment of playgrounds and parks—good air and 
a chance to be by oneself and have some liberty 
of movement being greater aids to Christian man- 
hood than one sometimes imagines. 

Anti-tuberculosis ‘‘drives’’ and other public-health 
campaigns are fostered by social workers through 
national organizations often on a nation-wide scale. 

It falls to the social worker also to superintend 
the various ‘‘Homes’’ for the aged, for the feeble- 

163 


‘OUT INTO LIFE 


minded, for orphans, and for the morally delinquent. 
The last two are of paramount importance. Or- 
phans who have only the lore of their companions 
of the streets to guide them too often grow up 
criminals, while many who have had the counsel 
of an elder-brotherly social worker have become 
strong citizens. Moral delinquency is often dis- 
covered to be simply the result of bad environ- 
ment: the chance of the understanding social worker 
is to find out whence the bad influences come— 
from parents, companions, or others—and win the 
boy or young man to choose new associates and 
new ideals. 

The great industries more and more are asking for 
social workers to study and provide for the needs 
of the employees and their families. Such work is 
usually in charge of the personnel manager, under 
whom visitors, nurses, playground experts, athletic 
directors, and others minister to the requirements 
of the community. Workers in this field who keep 
their minds open soon become aware of some of 
the sources of irritation in the “‘capital-versus-labor” 
problem, and it is from their wisdom and expe- 
rience that solutions for it must largely be drawn. 

The almost irresistible challenge which this pro- 
fession makes lies in the directness with which it 
confronts every one of us, no matter what our gifts 
are. Do you enjoy scientific investigation? Says 
Social Service: ‘‘I can give it to you in its most 
fascinating form—the investigation of how people 
live.”” Do you enjoy politics and legislative work? 
“IT need men who have the courage to champion 
philanthropic laws against intrenched evil inter- 
ests.” Do you enjoy association with people, 

164 


HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES 


things, or books? Writing or speaking? “I can 
provide you any combination of interests you de- 
sire.” Do you want hard work in a position of 
responsibility? The office of executive secretary in 
a large charitable institution will call into play all 
the initiative, ingenuity, wisdom, and leadership 
yoll may possess. 

In a former day the emphasis of social work was 
almost wholly upon the cure of community ailments: 
to-day, as in medicine, the greater stress is laid 
upon the prevention. 

The pay.—The man who enters social service 
will not receive a high salary. Social workers, 
because they belong to the small class of those 
who see further into the future than the majority, 
can never expect the majority to believe in them 
sufficiently to spare them the salaries they deserve. 

Yet those who have given their lives to the 
service have declared that the disadvantage of the 
small salary is more than counterbalanced by that 
reward of rewards, the abiding sense of living and 
helping live. Who executes the will of God more 
certainly than they? The saint, whose piety con- 
sists in bead-telling in a cell? John Hay put it 
squarely: 


“T think that saving a little child 
And bringing him to his own 
Is a derned sight better business 
Than loafing around the Throne.” 


Religion and social service: mother and child.— 
Yet John Hay would have been the first to point 
out that “loafing around the Throne” and real 
prayer are two different matters, and that the 

165 


‘OUT INTO LIFE 


latter is as closely bound up with social service 
as the former is foreign to it. It is simple history 
that social work was originally begun by church 
members seeking to put into practice the principles 
of Jesus. As J. Ramsay MacDonald, prime minister 
of Great Britain, himself a social worker of large 
experience, declares: ‘‘You cannot approach the 
solution of your social problems unless you remem- 
ber that the spiritual must be the predominant.” 
Christian faith furnishes in social work both the 
goal and the energy to reach it: its awareness of 
God’s Fatherhood teaches it to strive for human 
brotherhood, and its sense of God’s power gives it 
courage to do so. 

Preparation.—There is a certain technique in 
social work which may be mastered in a two-years’ 
course at a good school. There are such schools 
in the largest cities of the country. The New York 
School of Philanthropy and the Chicago School of 
Civics and Philanthropy are well known, and there 
are others. Many large universities have depart- 
ments for training in this work. 

This special training will be of value to you 
largely in proportion to the amount of your previous 
general training. As in any profession, it is the 
man who approaches his problems with the broad- 
est viewpoint, the best-stocked mental treasury, 
and the best-trained thinking apparatus who is 
likely to be the most useful. 

Altruism! bah!—Certain men will scoff at you 
for seeking an “‘altruistic’’ profession. It is true 
that your wage will be comparatively small—not 
nearly so large as a prize-fighter’s, for instance. 
But then, Jesus’ share of the gate receipts at the 

166 


HELPING OTHERS TO HELP THEMSELVES 


crucifixion was not very large. His eyes were on 
a different sort of reward: he saw a new world: 
it was enough for him! 


“Dreamer of dreams! I take the taunt with gladness, 
Knowing that God, beyond the years you see, 
Hath wrought the dream that counts with you for mad- 
ness 
Into the structure of the world to be!” 


For DIscussiIon 


1. The Czecho-Slovak legation at Washington has no 
military attaché, but instead has a social service 
attaché whose business it is to observe social effort 
in America and send home information. Most 
other nations have the former attaché but not the 
latter. Which is the safer policy? Why? 

2. If we can make the world better by social service, is 
not religion a useless ‘‘extra’’? 

3. The united charities in some cities conduct annual 
raffles, because this is apparently the only way to 
raise the money they need. Is this justifiable? 
Why not? 

4. Is a boy brought up in a bad neighborhood to blame 
for his bad traits? Is anybody really responsible 
for his own character? Is not character simply the 
result of heredity and environment? 

s. Samuel Gompers denounces “welfare work” in the 
industries because, he says, since the management 
supervises it, it is in effect treating the workers 
like children. Do you agree? 

6. Which is more important, prayer or service? 


For FurTHER STUDY 
7. Read John 13. 3-17. What idea did Jesus try to con- 
vey by his act? Some sects still maintain the 
167 


OUT INTO LIFE 


sacrament of foot-washing, as Jesus commanded. 
Should all churches do so? 

8. Give three illustrations of the oft-quoted: ‘‘The 
charity of to-day is the justice of to-morrow.”’ 

9. Upon what grounds can you call a social worker a 
scientist? an artist? 

10. Thomas Mott Osborne is a wealthy man who has 
done wonders in prison reform. Would you enjoy 
that type of social work? If not, which kind would 
you fancy more? In any case, why? 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 183-188. 

Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 318-320. 

L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter 
XI. 

F. M. Harris and J. C. Robbins, A Challenge to Life 
Service, Chapter XI. 


168 


CHAPTER XIX 
EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE 


A QUAINT story in one of the sacred books of 
the Hebrews has a world of truth in it: 


A great drought afflicted the land of Israel. The king 
called his people together, so that the nation should 
beseech the Lord to send rain upon the earth. Then 
the king stood forth and made his prayer, but the sky 
was as brass and the earth as iron. The priests of the 
temple made their prayer, but the sky was as brass and 
the earth as iron. And the lords and great men, the 
wise men and chief captains, made their prayer, yet 
still the sky was as brass and the earth as iron. Then 
there stood forth an old man, poor and in mean clothing, 
and he made his prayer, and lo! the sky was black with 
clouds, and there was a sound of abundance of rain. 
Then the king and his counselors and his captains, the 
priests and the wise men gathered round that poor man, 
saying: “And who are you whose prayer has availed with 
the Lord to send rain in the earth?’ And hesaid, “Iama 
teacher of little children.” 


The greatness of the task.—Many historians say 
that the teacher has affected human life more than 
any other person in the world. [If the children in 
the schools of the United States to-day were to 
join hands, they could make a circle reaching from 
Florida up the Atlantic Coast to the arctic circle, 
across to the Pacific, down that coast to Mexico, 
and so back to Florida again—including practically 
the whole North American continent! This is an 

169 


TOUTAIN TORTIE 


astounding fact, but it is not more so than the 
thought that these millions of children are all de- 
pendent upon teachers for the ideas and attitudes 
which will make them fit or unfit for life. Our own 
ways of thinking, speaking, and acting, our greatest 
ambitions and smallest mannerisms are, more often 
than we realize, due to the teachers we have had 
in the past. No wonder no sane person to-day 
questions the need for good teachers. 

In the old days, especially in rural schools, a 
single teacher usually taught all the subjects in a 
grade. Now, in the upper elementary grades and 
in high schools teachers are limiting themselves to 
single subjects, certain of which are more readily 
handled by men than women. There are ten times 
as many high schools in the United States as there 
were a generation ago. This means an increasing 
need for men. 

Teaching positions open to men are classified 
by Dr. H. L. Smith in a government publication 
as follows: 


1. Positions in the eight grammar school grades— 

(a) As teachers of the regular grade subjects in 
rural schools. 

(b) As teachers of the regular grade subjects in 
fifth, sixth, and especially seventh and 
eighth grades in the city schools. 

(c) As teachers of special subjects in the grades, 
such as music, mechanical drawing, manual 
training, agriculture, commercial subjects, 
physical training, and playground work, in- 
cluding coaching in athletics. 

2, Positions in high schools, as teachers of practically 
all subjects, but especially the sciences, such as geology, 
170 


EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE 


physics, zoology, botany, and chemistry; and agriculture, 
commercial subjects, debating, history, mathematics, for- 
eign languages, English, drafting, shop work of various 
kinds, and printing. 

3. Positions in all-day, part-time, or evening vocational 
schools as teachers of vocational subjects. 

4. Positions in normal schools, colleges, and universi- 
ties. 


The work of organizing and supervising our sys- 
tem of education throughout the country is in- 
trusted almost wholly to men. 

Disadvantages and advantages.—An occupation 
which is scaled to meet such various demands, 
from those of the district schoolroom to those of 
the university lecture hall, calls for workers of 
many grades of ability. Ordinary grammar-school 
teaching is not usually classed with the ‘‘profes- 
sions,” strictly so called, but the work of adminis- 
tration and supervision of schools in both city and 
country is rapidly rising to the plane of medicine 
or law. Teaching in higher institutions of learning 
ranks in dignity beneath no other calling. The 
social standing of a teacher depends largely upon 
these considerations. 

The financial returns from teaching, as Doctor 
Smith points out, 


are not large. But teaching usually pays at least a 
comfortable living from the very first. The number of 
years that it takes to reach the maximum salary varies 
greatly in the different cities. In Massachusetts the 
maximum salary for men, excluding principals, is not 
usually reached under fifteen years. In Massachusetts 
the maximum salary is about twice as great as the min- 
imum. 


171 


MOUTSINI OGL EPE 


A teacher’s position is more or less permanent. 
When business becomes depressed, men are dropped 
from many commercial positions, but no enlight- 
ened community ejects its teachers. 

The teacher’s day, though perhaps shorter than 
the ordinary business day, is not so short as it 
appears. Competent authorities say that the 
fatigue of teaching one hour is equivalent to the 
strain of two hours of quiet study or ordinary 
office work; and besides this, every teacher must 
add to each day’s classroom work two or three 
hours for correcting papers and preparing for the 
next day’s classes. 

There is opportunity, however, for regular exer- 
cise in the open air. Barclay H. Farr, a young 
man teaching in a boys’ preparatory school, him- 
self an athlete when in college, writes: ) 


It is a healthy life a teacher leads. Means to exercise 
are always available and there is always somebody ready 
for any kind of sport that may appeal. How many busi- 
ness men could go out and play a game of football after 
ten years of life in an office? The coach of a boys’ foot- 
ball team frequently is called on to strengthen the scrubs, 
or even to play on the school team against a college fresh- 
man team or varsity scrub. This means that a teacher 
has an opportunity to keep himself in good physical 
shape all the time, and at the same time he keeps much 
of his youthful vigor and enthusiasm. 


Owing to the mental strain of teaching, the long 
vacation is a necessity, but it may also be a source 
of pleasure and profit. One third of the year for 
travel, or study, or recreation!—many business men 
would spend half their fortune for the opportunity. 

172 


EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE 


But educating has other rewards. Mr. Farr 
continues: 


The teacher hears splendid lectures and concerts, and 
meets interesting men and women from all over the 
world. And these are only the obvious rewards. 

To some men there is nothing that gives them such 
satisfaction as the knowledge that they are giving more 
than they are receiving. A good teacher knows this to be 
a fact, and it is an inspiration to him and makes up for a 
lot of things that other men have, but which he cannot 
afford. 


The greatest gift a teacher can give to his pupils 
is himself, and this gift he cannot, to a certain 
degree, avoid giving, since all men are made—as 
well as known—by the company they keep. The 
teacher must reproduce himself in the lives of his 
pupils. How terrifying a privilege! What if the 
world should become peopled with men just like 
yourself?—would it be a pleasant place to live in 
or a bit horrible? The most imperious demand 
made of a teacher is for a virile Christian person- 
ality; and it is in being able to impart this that 
he finds his greatest joy. One teacher writes: 


If there is anything to compare with the sense of 
strength one derives from his own prayer-life, it is wit- 
nessing the growth of that same strength in the lives of 
those who look to you as teacher. 


Christian education.—The Christian Church 
apprehends as it never has before the need for 
religious teachers. Every modern church has, or 
is looking forward to having, a director of religious 
education. The many activities of a large church 
—the church school with its six or seven depart- 


173 


_OUT INTO LIFE 


ments, the young people’s societies, the missionary 
society, the Scout troops and Camp-fire groups, 
and the other educational organizations—require 
unification and general oversight. This is too 
large a task for the Sunday-school superintendent, 
who, being usually a busy business man, can have 
neither the time nor the training for it. It calls 
for the full-time service of a person who is familiar 
with the whole technique of religious education. 

And if the goal of our race is the kingdom of 
heaven, and if we are to reach it largely by educat- 
ing our children to it, what profession has a more 
exalted usefulness than that of director of religious 
education? 

Qualifications and training.—Teaching is a pro- 
fession for which a man can to a certain degree 
test his fitness before entering upon it. ‘There are 
always opportunities to teach children. Doubtless 
there is a class in your Sunday school now which 
you are either teaching or ought to be teaching. 
As scoutmaster or assistant you find that a large 
share of your work is teaching. Wherever, indeed, 
you are thrown in with people younger than your- 
self, there is teaching going on. Do you enjoy it? 

The teacher must have in his own mind the 
knowledge he is to communicate, and love it for 
its own sake. In the words of Robert Shafer, 
a young college professor: ‘‘The best teachers are 
those who love knowledge for itself and love it 
better than money. They teach because they wish 
to make it prevail.” 

The other essential quality in a teacher is the 
passion and ability for making the pupil desire to 
learn. 


174 


EDUCATING THE HUMAN RACE 


Training must therefore proceed along two lines. 
Whether one is looking forward to primary or 
university work, he must be educated in the facts 
of his subjects and their relations. 

He must also possess himself of the technique 
of teaching his facts and their relations. Pedagogy 
is a fine art. To master the rudiments of it one 
must have a year or two in a normal school. Some 
universities have courses in the subject. All mod- 
ern theological seminaries have departments for 
the training of directors of religious education. 

The librarian.—The library is the natural ally 
of the school, for its work is primarily educa- 
tional. 

Librarians are needed in every city and large 
town, in many high schools, and in all universi- 
ties. 

Any man who has a passion for books, and 
realizes that the well-being of the country partly 
depends upon the amount of reading done by its 
citizens, possesses the first trait required in a libra- 
rian. He must possess unusual executive ability, 
for the routine of a large library is very complicated. 
He must have the business judgment to spend 
wisely his library’s limited income. He must know 
his books and their readers. He must be thor- 
oughly acquainted with the technique of classifying 
and cataloguing. 

For this technique, training in a good library 
school is essential. Thus equipped, a librarian has 
before him a life of unusual usefulness, and through 
the years, if he is the right sort, he will gradually, 
as Sam Walter Foss said, ‘‘grow big enough to fill 
the great place it is his duty to assume.” 


175 


Io. 


. OUT INTO LIFE 


For Discussion 


. Should the teaching of religion be allowed in the 


ordinary public schools? 


. If Jesus were choosing his occupation to-day, would 


he take into account the social standing it would 
probably give him? 


. Are the better teachers those who teach because 


they love knowledge or because they love people? 


. Should we pay our Sunday-school teachers? 
. Should a university accept a gift to which conditions 


are attached that certain theories be or be not 
taught? 


. Should a professor have freedom to express his views 


on any subject without hindrance by the trustees 
of his university? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


. Write an essay on Jesus as a teacher, taking up his 


own knowledge of his subject, his knowledge of 
human psychology, the clarity of his language and 
concreteness of his style, and the definiteness of 
his aim. 


. What is the object and what the work of the Na- 


tional Education Association? Of the American 
Library Association? : 


. Should a boy of ten have a man or woman as teacher? 


a boy of twelve? fourteen? sixteen? Talk it over 
with some person who knows. 

Does teaching or library work appeal to you more? 
Give all your reasons. 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 171-177. 

Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 285-290. 

L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapters’ 
VII, VIII. 


176 


CHAPTER XX 
JOURNALISM: A UNIVERSAL INFLUENCE 


THE battle of New Orleans, with its loss of lives 
and property, fought after the war of 1812 was 
formally ended, would never have taken place if 
our modern system of spreading news had been in 
operation. To-day a bit of knowledge possessed 
by a single man in the morning can be flashed over 
the whole world and put in print before evening. 

The inside of a newspaper establishment.— 
Newspaper establishments have five main divi- 
sions: the business office, which controls the publi- 
cation, circulation, advertising, and finances; the 
composing room, where the type is set, and the 
proof-reading room; the stereotyping department, 
where the matrices are made and the plates cast; 
the press room, where the actual printing is done; 
and the editorial department, where all the reading 
matter except the advertising is prepared. This 
chapter deals especially with the work of the man 
in the editorial department. 

In this department are prepared both the news 
columns and the editorial comment. The editor- 
in-chief is at the head of the whole staff. The 
editorials are written by editorial writers or speci- 
fied members of the staff who must be well in- 
formed on public matters. The “colyumist” and 
“funny sheet’’ editors are also in the editorial 
department. 

The amount of news, its arrangement, the 


177 


- OUT INTO LIFE 


“make-up,” and division of space is in charge of 
the managing editor, who is assisted by others 
whose duties, as assigned on a typical metropolitan 
daily, are summarized by Dr. H. L. Smith in a 
government monograph as follows: 


The news editor looks after all out-of-town news, that 
is, all news from other countries or from this country 
outside of a certain distance from the city of the news- 
paper. The telegraph editor looks over “‘copy’”’ sent in 
by telegraph and decides what is good and what is poor. 
The Sunday editor gets up the pictures and other ‘‘fea- 
tures’? and special articles outside of strictly news arti- 
cles. The art editor decides upon the pictures to be 
used and the method of making those pictures. The 
cable editor prepares the foreign news by filling in cable 
messages and making long articles out of them. The 
city editor hires and directs reporters on work within 
the city, and others outside called local correspondents, 
though the latter are perhaps as often handled by the 
suburban editor. ‘The sporting editor looks after news 
of sports. The night city editor (in a morning paper) 
covers late news, being in charge after 6 P. M. to receive 
copy brought in by reporters. The night editor is in 
charge of the ‘‘make-up”’ of the paper and the getting of 
the paper to press. Most newspapers also have other 
editors called department editors for music, drama, so- 
ciety, finance, literary criticism, railroads, real estate, 
and stock markets. 


Disadvantages and advantages.—The reporter is 
never sure of his hours. On a morning paper he is 
subject to call at any time of afternoon or evening, 
sometimes having an afternoon off, but more often 
working until midnight. On the afternoon papers, 
though his regular hours are from 8 or g to 4, his 
assignments often keep him out at night. 

178 


JOURNALISM: A UNIVERSAL INFLUENCE 


The men at the desks inside have their own 
problems, a glimpse of which is given in the report 
on Journalism by the Collins Publicity Service: 


As the time for going to press approaches, the copy 
pours in faster and faster, the composing room signals 
that the paper is already overset, and yet perhaps now, 
at the last minute, an item of first importance in the 
whole day’s events comes in, and room must be made for 
it. In the midst of all this clamor the desk man must 
keep his head, racing through the piles of copy, weighing 
its merits discriminately and giving a cool and very care- 
ful decision as though he had all the leisure and quiet in 
the world! 


On entering the profession a man does not make 
much money, though he does not have to wait 
for a year or so, as the young physician often does, 
before he can pay his living expenses. And it 
is not long before other advantages begin to man- 
ifest themselves. Reginald W. T. Townsend, who, 
though a young man, holds an important editorial 
office, writes: 


Rewards! Not always tangible. The real reward is in 
the joy of creation, and in the joy of honest combat. 
Here is something creative. In each issue your mind 
creates a new and—at least to your mind—a beautiful 
something, a something that is of benefit to your fellow 
men. Something that takes him out of the dull rut of 
routine and either cheers or amuses him or tells him of 
the higher ideals and achievements of mankind. I love 
my work—there is real thrill in it. It has educated me. 
It has taught me not only to know and appreciate my 
fellow men, but it has taught me to seek for the finer 
things in life, whether they be in music, in art, in litera- 
ture, or, most of all, in nature itself. 


179 


COUN DOP er ite 


And who, more than a journalist, has the spir- 
itual remuneration which comes from being in 
touch with men and affairs? He meets the world’s 
leaders. He is the ‘‘witness and interpreter of 
great events.” 

A power for righteousness.—Philip D. Hoyt, 
another journalist not many years older than your- 
self, expresses the gist of the matter: 


The opportunity for usefulness is incalculable in jour- 
nalism, and even the youngest tyro may exert a powerful 
influence, either for good or ill. Most of our judgments 
—the things that go to make up public opinion—are 
based on information that comes at second hand through 
the newspapers. The task of analyzing a situation and 
presenting it in its true light so that the public concep- 
tion of contemporary conditions shall be true and just is 
the daily business of the journalist. 


Too many journals distort and suppress news in 
the interest of ‘“‘big business” and the political 
parties. It is impossible to rely on the information 
regarding either a Republican or Democratic admin- 
istration given in many newspapers of the opposite 
political adherence; and because of the great adver- 
tising and investment capacity of the liquor and 
allied interests, it is a rare paper which will print 
the whole unfavorable truth concerning the illicit 
trade. 

One of the worst features of “‘yellow journals’’ 
—happily growing fewer in number—is the exag- 
geration of exciting news, to increase the sale of 
the paper. An event announced in huge head- 
lines will be acknowledged a mere rumor in small 
print below, and the next day in an obscure corner 
toned down considerably, if not denied entirely. 

180 


JOURNALISM: A UNIVERSAL INFLUENCE 


The ‘‘yellow” sheet appeals to the lowest human 
motives. It purveys illuminated recitals of crimes 
and filthy scandals. A certain type of daily panders 
to our worst prejudices, racial hatreds, and jeal- 
ousies. President McKinley was assassinated by a 
man whose unsteady mind had been crazed by the 
lying virulence of a newspaper. In a word, the 
journal is a tremendous weapon for weal or woe. 
The kingdom of heaven will be realized on earth 
only if the newspaper men ordain it. How mighty 
the call for men of ideals! 

Qualifications.—A superior man can work him- 
self up from reporterhood to the position of editor- 
in-chief. Mr. Townsend mentions a few of the 
necessary qualifications for a magazine editor which 
apply in part also to the newspaper field: 


An editor has first of all to be a salesman. His market 
is the whole world and his success depends upon his 
ability to sell the goods contained in his magazine. 

The editor must be an able business man. It is up to 
him to see that the cost will not eat up the profits; to 
know when to spend money liberally to get returns. 

The editor must be a sort of factory for ideas. He 
must live in the future and never pause to rest for a 
moment, even after an issue appears. He must pick 
out ideas in strange corners, and must readapt these 
ideas to his own job. 


He must possess the ‘“‘news instinct’’—the ability 
to recognize events of human interest and write 
them out in readable style. He must know the 
English language in its clearest form. He must 
be a mixer, capable of inspiring in others con- 
fidence in himself. 

I8I 


‘OUT INTO LIFE 


But if he is to be the editor his generation needs, 
underlying all his work he will be conscious of a 
motive which directs all his efforts toward the 
building of the better world of which Christ spoke. 
The profession of helping the Maker of all things 
make his world more beautiful, filled with nobler 
men—this is journalism at its best. 

Education.—The journalist cannot hope to suc- 
ceed without a high-school education. It is diffi- 
cult for him to go far without a college education. 
Over twenty colleges and universities now have 
courses in journalism whereby one can not only 
acquire a cultural breadth, but also learn much 
of the technique of the profession—the methods of 
gathering news, the general management of papers, 
the history of journalism, the “how” of writing 
stories and editorials, and of making headlines. 

The best way to test your aptitude for journal- 
ism is to report or write for your school or college 
paper orannual. The editors of these papers, like all 
other editors, are always eager for items of real 
news or cleverly written articles. Try your hand! 

Magazines and books.—Magazines as. well as 
newspapers wield an immense influence, and call 
for a high type of man. Those which specialize 
in news use an English style similar to that of the 
columns of a daily, while there are others of a 
distinctly literary character. The editor of the 
latter type must be an artist in the use of English. 

In the United States books are published every 
year in numbers too stupendous for the imagina- 
tion to grasp. The kind of man who makes a 
successful publisher of magazines makes as suc- 
cessful a publisher of books. 

182 


JOURNALISM: A UNIVERSAL INFLUENCE 


Religious newspapers, magazines, and books.— 
If our people are educated by what they read, 
religious educators and writers are plainly indis- 
pensable. Approximately one seventh of the hun- 
dreds of millions of copies of books published 
annually in the United States are concerned with 
religion. A large portion of our periodicals and 
dailies are also religious. What messengers of good 
tidings the best of them are! They spread the news 
of the advance of Christ’s church. They carry 
spiritual quickening to parched hearts. They 
bring clear thinking to men and women in uncer- 
tainty and doubt. They provide literature from 
which children and young people may learn what 
life is and how it is best lived. 

One of the chief advantages a book has over a 
man is that it can be printed in any number of 
copies and sent to the uttermost parts of the earth. 
Perhaps you cannot be a foreign missionary. Then 
write!—and send your words of encouragement and 
help to those at work upon the frontier. 

Leonidas W. Crawford puts the challenge 
unequivocally: 


The church is seeking to discover and is ready to en- 
throne men and women who possess writing ability. Here 
is a field not overcrowded. Success therein gives you an 
unlimited opportunity for usefulness. If God has en- 
dowed you with a creative gift, do you not owe it to him 
to cultivate it and to use it in his name?’ 


For Discussion 
1. Which do you consider the greater educational force 





1 Vocations Within the Church. The Abingdon Press. Used by 
permission. 


183 


. OUT INTO LIFE 


in the United States, the school-teacher or the 
journalist? 

. Is the influence of newspapers upon public morality 
in America good or bad? 

. In Great Britain a newspaper is subject to a fine by 
the government for emphasizing criminal news. 
Would you advocate this custom for America, or 
do you believe in our ‘‘freedom of the press’’? 

. Should a paper sell advertising space to any person 
or firm who will pay for it? 

. What is the duty of the press in time of war: “any- 
thing to win the war,” or “truth at all costs’’? 


For FurRTHER STUDY 


. What kind of books were used in the time of Jesus? 
What was used for writings not intended to be 
permanent? Look it up in a good encyclopedia. 

. Compare what you consider a good newspaper with 
a poor one. How many columns of news in each? 
of illustrations? literature? opinion? advertise- 
ments? What is it which gives the better paper 
its quality of excellence? 

. Look up the life of William Lloyd Garrison, Edwin 
Lawrence Godkin, Jacob A. Riis, or some other 
great newspaper man. What made him great? 


9. Which one of the editors who assist in the managing 


editor’s department would you rather be? Give a 
complete answer. 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 177-183. 
L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter X. 
G. S. Lee, Crowds. Book V, Chapter XIII. 


184 


CHAPTER XXI 
THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE 


To-day (which is but a fair sample of every working 
day) a missionary priest of the Russian-Greek Orthodox 
Church of North America came in and laid a part of his 
troubles on my desk. He couldn’t talk English, so he 
brought a friend who said he spoke English. It seems 
there is a fight on in the parish and one of the parish- 
ioners has stolen the key to the safe and taken the official 
church documents and seal, which he is proceeding to 
use contrary to constituted authority. It is a small 
matter, you will say, but it is the biggest thing in that 
priest’s life just now, and he would lose all trust in the 
American system of government if I didn’t help him get 
the things back. Well, I spent about two hours with him, 
getting the pertinent facts on which to base a complaint. 

Then a very paying client came in and asked if I had 
drawn certain important amendments to the articles of 
incorporation. I hadn’t, but I surely did get busy im- 
mediately. 

After lunch I was called into the sanctum sanctorum of 
the head of the firm to talk over an unfair competition 
case. And so it goes—no day like the last, and no one 
problem just like the next. 


So writes a young lawyer, Robert G. Bosworth. 
The duties.—Mr. Bosworth’s description of the 
problems which are brought to him suggests the 
wide range of human needs every successful general 
practitioner of the law is called upon to meet; and 
yet, as in all occupations, there are certain daily 
duties for the lawyer which gradually acquire a 
185 


“OUT INTO LIFE 


sameness and which can hardly be called anything 
but drudgery. 

There is office work—reading letters, composing, 
dictating, or writing them, drafting pleadings and 
briefs, and drawing up documents of various sorts 
for clients. 

Some time must be spent in work outside the 
office—hunting up witnesses, looking up deeds and 
other documents recorded in public archives, going 
through the account books of a client to run down 
a claim, or making other similar investigations. 

It is only a small fraction of his time that the 
lawyer gives to the more human task of inter- 
viewing clients or the more thrilling one of plead- 
ing a case before judge or jury. 

The lawyer must never cease to be a student. 
The better acquainted he becomes with the his- 
tory of the law, its decisions, reports, statutes, 
treatises, the higher he stands in his profession. 
The business of every new client, whatever it may 
be—electrical tractors, chemistry, dry goods—calls 
for study. 

Along with all other occupations, law is, branch- 
ing into highly specialized forms. ‘These are sum- 
marized by Dr. H. L. Smith in the government 
booklet The Law as a Vocation as follows: 


The criminal lawyer limits his practice chiefly to work 
in criminal courts and deals with offenses that have been 
committed against society. 

The tort lawyer deals with damage suits. The work 
of the tort lawyer is often divided into two fields, that 
of the plaintiff lawyer and that of the defendant lawyer. 
The plaintiff lawyer does work for those parties who are 
claiming damage. The defendant lawyer does work for 

186 


THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE 


those individuals or organizations that are sued for 
damage. Generally the defendant lawyer serves a lia- 
bility or insurance company, corporation, or other em- 
ployer. 

The real-estate lawyer is engaged largely in examining 
titles, and in acting as trustee and thus holding funds for 
investment. His work naturally brings him in close 
touch with both the buying and selling end of the real- 
estate business, so that he usually, himself, engages to 
some extent in that business. 

The patent lawyer assists in getting patents from the 
national government, and in acting as an attorney in 
patent cases. 


Some advantages and disadvantages.—The out- 
standing disadvantage of the legal profession in 
America is its overcrowded condition. As Gowin, 
Wheatley, and Brewer point out: 


In New York City alone there are more lawyers than 
{n the whole of Germany or France, and only a small 
proportion of these men are really lawyers in practice; 
most of them eke out a living in selling insurance, dealing 
in real estate, reporting for papers, doing hack work for 
busy lawyers, or watching with hungry eyes for political 
jobs. 

But the law has its peculiar rewards. 

Although it takes an able man to secure more 
than a bare competency, the unusually gifted and 
industrious man who becomes indispensable to his 
clients earns a really large income. 

An active-minded man derives enjoyment from 
the very variety of problems with which the law 
confronts him. 

The law brings a man into contact with the 


1 Occupations. Courtesy of Ginn & Company, publishers. 


187 


“OUT INTO LIFE 


leading men of his community, with whom endur- 
ing friendships may spring up. 

But the subtlest of the pleasures the law affords, 
to quote Mr. Bosworth again, is the chance for 
human usefulness: 


Aspirations? Why, certainly a lawyer has them. He 
doesn’t long to be great, except as every right-minded 
individual would like to become one of several outstand- 
ing figures in his community. He longs to be of service 
in a world where so much service is needed. He is, or 
should be, constantly conscious of the ideal which led 
the old English jurist to call his profession ““Ye Publick 
Profession of Ye Lawe’’—a profession charged with a 
very real and sacred duty to society and future genera- 
tions. 

The lawyer who is really at home in his profession 
derives real happiness from the constant contact with 
new problems, from the constant association with men 
of more than average education, and from the belief that 
he can and probably will be of more service to his com- 
munity than he ever could from any amount of “filthy 
lucre.”’ These are some of the allurements which make 
me thoroughly contented to stay in the profession of 
the law. 


The ethics of the profession.—The oath of ad- 
mission to the bar commended by the American 
Bar Association reads in part: 


I will maintain the respect due to Courts of Justice. 

I will not counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding 
which shall appear to me to be unjust. 

I will never reject, from any consideration personal to 
myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed. 


The true lawyer’s supreme aim is set forth by 
Rufus Choate: “‘He shall do everything for justice!” 
188 


THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE 


It is for the very reason that the better lawyer 
sets before himself so high an ideal that he con- 
demns the conduct and motives of the less worthy 
members of the bar. ‘There are too many con- 
scienceless hangers-on in the profession who are 
seeking not to do justice but to make money. 
They are the ones who suborn witnesses and bribe 
juries, dragging down the reputation of the courts 
by suppressing facts in a trial, concealing witnesses 
dangerous to their case, misquoting testimony, 
citing as authority overruled decisions, and working 
up propaganda in the public press to influence the 
jury. It is common belief that every lawyer’s 
motto is, ‘‘Win the case—win it honestly if you 
can, but win it.’”’ This is an erroneous idea which 
persists in the public mind because some lawyers 
-unworthy of the name use their knowledge of legal 
technicalities to delay or prevent the course of 
justice. 

Qualifications.—Of what paramount importance 
that men who are really dedicated to ideals of pure 
justice should enter the profession! The Roman 
Empire in its heyday had its foundations in its 
lawyers’ justitia, their devoted adherence to justice. 
The empire crumbled as the tide of personal cor- 
ruption rose in the profession of the law. If the 
strength of a nation depends upon the just deal- 
ings of its citizens with each other, and the citizens 
intrust their dealings largely to the law, who has 
a more responsible share in America’s welfare than 
her lawyers? 

Immense sums of money are often put at the 
disposal of a lawyer to tempt him to stretch a 
point of justice in favor of a client, and political 

189 


~OUT INTO LIFE 


influences are brought to bear upon him which he 
knows to be powerful enough to make or break his 
subsequent career, but the first requisite of a lawyer 
is that he should stand for “justice, though the 
heavens fall’’—fall even upon him alone. 

Obviously, the man who can most fearlessly 
champion justice in the face of gigantic evil inter- 
ests is one who believes that he has on his side a 
force greater even than the interests. He is, in 
a word, a man who believes in God. 

Of course ‘“‘justice’’ is difficult to define and even 
more difficult to apply to the complex relations 
of modern life. It is defined as best it may be in 
our established rules of law, but in the great ma- 
jority of cases in our courts each party honestly 
believes that justice is on his side—and yet one 
must be found to be right and the other wrong. 
A lawyer needs remarkable powers of analysis. 

The most important personal qualifications for a 
lawyer are stated by Alfred E. Mudge, of the New 
York bar, to be: 


Integrity. 

Sound judgment. 

Capacity for hard and intensive work. 

Ability to analyze. 

Ability to express oneself and to convince others. 


Training.—It is sometimes difficult for a young 
man to know whether he possesses these qual- 
ifications or not. If a man in high school or college 
has shown himself possessed of a keen sense of 
justice, and a thorough enjoyment of his courses 
in classics, history, and mathematics, he will prob- 
ably be a good lawyer. 


190 


THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE 


Unless a young man is aware of a clear urge, he 
should not allow himself to drift into the law, for 
he will only make one more in an already over- 
crowded profession and as such will be, not a useful 
servant of society, but a dead weight. 

The man who has the making of a real lawyer 
in him must attend one of our law schools, the 
best of which require a complete college course as 
a preparation. Then he must take his examinations 
to be “admitted to the bar,” as each State requires 
that no man shall hang out his shingle as a lawyer 
who has not reached certain standards. 

Public life.—No other profession leads one so 
easily into public life. Nearly all our national 
congressmen and many members of State Legis- 
latures are lawyers. Who should be better fitted 
to make our laws than men whose life-work is the 
study of law? 

Lawyers are also eminently well trained to admin- 
ister the law, and we find the profession preponder- 
ating in the executive offices of our country: the 
majority of State governors and city mayors to-day 
are lawyers. 

Our judges are all lawyers. Though practical 
politics makes some exceptions, they are in general 
men selected for their evident loyalty to pure 
justice, their solid character, and their learning, 
to interpret and apply existing laws. 

Entrance into public life is sometimes spoken of 
as “getting into politics,” and to some men that 
is all it is—plunging into the sub-rosa scrabble and 
grab for the public money. What need for men 
who see public life as an opportunity for serving 
the nation, who will dedicate their lives to the 


19t 


OUT INTO LIFE 


peace and progress of their generation and the 
generations to come! 

It was a young man with such an ideal who was 
some years ago admitted to the Illinois bar. From 
the beginning of his legal career, all who knew him 
were inspired by his fine fairness and broad human 
sympathy. His spirit was shown in a letter he 
wrote when his partner urged him to take advan- 
tage of a quibble: 


You know it is a sham, and a sham is often but another 
name for a lie. Don’t let it go on record. The cursed 
thing may come staring us in the face long after this suit 
has been forgotten. 


The people voted for him because they loved 
him—as he loved them! He served in Congress and 
finally became President of the United States. 

Does not the career of Abraham Lincoln set you 
dreaming that you too may be called through law 
to the nation’s service? 


For Discussion 


1. Abraham Lincoln would defend no man whom he 
believed to be guilty. Modern legal ethics has it 
that “it is the right of a lawyer to undertake the 
defense of any person accused of crime, regardless 
of his personal opinion as to the guilt of the ac- 
cused.’’ Which is the better way? 

2. Should a man obey a law he believes to be unjust? 

. Is the popular feeling justified that no lawyer should 
allow himself to be retained on the regular payroll 
of a great corporation? 

4. How far should a lawyer advertise? 

5. Should a lawyer violate a client’s confidence under 

any circumstances? 
192 


W 


Io. 


THE LAWYER, SERVANT OF JUSTICE 


. A judge accepted a salaried position as a baseball 


official while still receiving a salary from the fed- 
eral government. Was he justified? Why? 


For FuRTHER STUDY 


. Read what Jesus has said about the law in Matthew 


5. 17; 23. 23 and elsewhere. What did he mean 
by ‘‘the law’? Why did he denounce the Phari- 
sees so bitterly? Was not the law a good thing 
for the Hebrews? Should we still obey the Ten 
Commandments? 


. What is the object and what are the activities of the 


American Bar Association? 


. Write a résumé of the life of John Marshall, John 


Hay, or some other distinguished American lawyer. 
What were the secrets of his success? 

If you were to become a lawyer, what type of work 
would you like to specialize in? Tell all your 
reasons why. 


For REFERENCE 


Giles and Giles, pages 145-152. 
Gowin, Wheatley, and Brewer, pages 295-297. 


193 


CHAPTER XXII 
THE MINISTRY AT HOME 


WHEREAS the lawyer thinks of his community 
more or less as a unit—for law is no respecter of 
persons, but takes them in the large—the minister 
thinks of his community as a number of individuals. 
He takes them one by one, each person to him 
being distinguished by his own peculiar needs and 
abilities. 

The work.—The service a minister performs may 
be roughly divided into three parts. 

The work which brings him most conspicuously 
before the people is his ministry of public worship. 
Conducting a service from the pulpit for a brief 
hour on Sunday morning and perhaps again on 
Sunday evening may seem a light duty to those 
who do not know how many hours the ordinary 
minister must spend in preparation, especially in 
the nonliturgical churches where preaching is greatly 
emphasized and unread prayers are the order. 
To keep abreast of his times he must read and 
read indefatigably. The more he knows of his- 
tory, science, economics, and the other general 
branches of human knowledge, the more intimately 
he studies his Bible, and the more exhaustively he 
thinks out the great truths of life, the more illumi- 
nating he can make his public utterances. 

A minister cannot dash into the pulpit as many 
men are compelled to hurry into their business 
offices every morning, for if his service is not pre- 


194 


THE MINISTRY AT HOME 


pared for by prayer and conducted in a spirit of 
prayer, it lacks an essential quality. 

A clergyman must be a pastor as well as a preacher. 
There are many who will come to him for advice. 
All are glad of his friendship in times of grief. The 
sick in mind as well as the sick in body turn to 
him for inspiration and encouragement. Day in 
and day out, through the years, he must be ready 
to act as the unfailing friend of his people. And 
to act as their friend he must be their friend. 

But a friendly hand which is not strong is of no 
help. Only the minister who has thought through 
the reasons for the faith which is in him, who main- 
tains a prayer life of his own, and who is wholly 
dedicated to the will of God, can be the rock of 
strength his people need. 

Since the minister is connected with a church, 
there are also duties of organization and adminis- 
tration. The policy of the work of his church as 
a whole rests in the last analysis upon him. The 
leaders of all the societies—the church school, the 
missionary societies, the men’s club, the boys’ 
and girls’ clubs—all depend upon him for advice 
and help. The financing of his church is one of 
his cares: it falls to him to interest his people in 
contributing not only to the expenses of the local 
church, but also to the worldwide work of Chris- 
tianity. 

To these three divisions of a minister’s life may 
be added a fourth, which is not directly connected 
with the church. If he has the gifts, he becomes a 
force in the community at large for public moral- 
ity and reform. It was a minister, for instance, 
who led the government to suppress the opium 


195 


_OUT INTO LIFE 


trade in the Philippine Islands. It was the min- 
isters up and down the country who, more than 
any other group, lifted up their voices for the 
eradication of the alcohol evil. When right-minded 
men and women gather for a crusade against some 
civic abuse, they naturally look to their ministers 
for leadership. 

The rewards.—Such a life brings its crowning 
rewards. A young pastor, Thomas Guthrie Speers, 
mentions three of them: 


For one thing, the ministry offers a man the chance of 
being a friend to a great many people, and to all kinds 
of people. Quite often on the same day I’ll go from one 
of the poorest and dirtiest tenement houses to one of the 
most wealthy homes, or from a business office to a school, 
or a boarding house, or a hospital. There is something 
tremendously satisfying in the opportunity of being con- 
sidered a real friend by all those different people, having 
them trust you, and feeling that they can talk to you 
about all the problems of their lives and about their rela- 
tion to God and the cause of God in the world. I believe 
that real friendship like that is one of the highest forms 
of service human beings can render. 

Then, again, the Christian ministry offers a man to-day 
one of the broadest lives possible. Think of the immense 
number of subjects that people expect a modern minister 
to know about! Think of the amount of speaking he is 
asked to do! I sometimes think it must be hard for a 
fellow going into business to keep from growing some- 
what narrow in his interests, but certainly that danger 
does not seem very real to a minister. His job is so big 
and so broad and so far-reaching that the more he con- 
centrates on it, the bigger he grows himself. 

The modern ministry is tremendously worth while 
from another point of view. Every important problem 

196 


THE MINISTRY AT HOME 


that we face in organized society to-day is fundamentally 
spiritual. This is true of international relations, crime 
waves, and labor disturbances, as well as many others 
that you can name. At bottom they are questions of the 
attitudes of men toward each other, their desires, pur- 
poses, characters, that is, their spirit. There is disorder 
in the mechanism of society, to be sure, but its primary 
trouble is in its heart. There are many criticisms that 
can be made of the church, and I agree with a lot of 
them, but the church, and organizations inspired by the 
church, are the only ones that are even trying to get at 
this fundamental problem. It maintains that we never 
will get any real brotherhood of man until all men recog- 
nize themselves as children of the same Father and try 
to live together in his spirit of loving cooperation and 
service. 


Is not the greatest reward of all stated in these 
words of Dr. John Henry Jowett? 


I have been in the Christian ministry for over twenty 
years. I love my calling. I have a glowing delight in its 
services. I am conscious of no distractions in the shape 
of any competitors for my strength and allegiance. I 
have had but one passion, and I have lived for it—the 
absorbingly arduous, yet glorious work of proclaiming 
the grace and love of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. 


The necessary traits.—The list of qualifications 
desirable in a minister might be drawn out to almost 
any length, for there is no endowment of intel- 
lectual brilliance, of delicate feeling, of moral 
earnestness, or of physical strength, which he may 
not use to advantage. If there is any one virtue 
which is basic, however, it is moral courage. 

This he needs in his public life. As the Rev. 
S. Z. Batten, D.D., indicates: 


197 


‘OUT INTO LIFE 


It is easy for the minister to “accept a situation” and 
be silent lest he stir up trouble. It is easy for him to 
denounce unpopular sins, as wife-beating, and get a 
reputation for brave outspokenness, and to soft-pedal on 
the major sins, such as economic oppression and com- 
mercial injustice.? 


Moral courage he needs even more in his pastoral 
life. Often he is hated and ridiculed by person- 
ages who feel in him a standing rebuke to their 
selfishness—but always, to all alike, without shadow 
of exception, he must maintain his Christian gen- 
tlemanliness. This sometimes, as the English say, 
“‘takes a bit of doing!”’ 

A young man looking forward to a pulpit and 
parish should know whence moral courage comes. 
He must thoroughly understand what Saint Paul 
meant when he cried, ‘‘I can do all things through 
Christ, who strengthens me!’ He does not need 
to know God completely, and, indeed, in this 
world he never will, since he is not omniscient; 
but he should know something about God, and 
long to know him better. 

Preparation.—Perhaps the best test a young man 
in high school or college can give himself as to 
whether he is fitted for this work or not is simply 
to give as much service as he can to his own church. 
A Sunday-school class, a young people’s society, 
or a boys’ club offers, to a small degree, the same 
sort of opportunities that a minister has. 

As for preparation—one is never prepared. He 
never can be wise or skillful or good enough. There 
are certain tasks which a minister is called upon 





1 Used by permission. 


198 


THE MINISTRY AT HOME 


to perform—presiding at the communion table, 
conducting the services of baptism and marriage 
—which require a certain technique. This is quickly 
learned. But a minister’s main business is to 
interpret God to the world, to make people realize 
the value of life, to give them a sense of reality— 
and for this he must know the thought of all who 
have gone before him; he must do original thinking 
for himself; and he must learn the clearest and most 
penetrating ways to express his thoughts. For this, 
four years in college and three in a theological 
seminary can give him only a good start. 

A man may feel a religious urge and yet not 
choose the ministry. The only advantage the 
ministry offers to a person who desires to live like 
Christ is the cooperation of the general public. 
They expect and by their expectancy help a min- 
ister to devote himself to a career of exceptional 
religious usefulness. When another man talks 
religion, people, at least at first, put him down 
as queer and out of place. A minister, however, 
never needs to excuse himself or waste time explain- 
ing his aim, for the people already know it. They 
feel that a nonclerical man is taking time from his 
regular business if he does too much direct religious 
work, but they grant a pastor all the time he needs 
for it. This gives him immense momentum in his 
community. 

To some men who feel keenly the world’s need 
for God no profession is so satisfying as the min- 
istry. Frederick William Henry Myers expresses 
the passion of a preacher’s heart through the mouth 
of his hero, Saint Paul: 


199 


SAD LBL ENGL Cee Lite 


““Oft when the Word is on me to deliver, 
Lifts the illusion, and the truth lies bare; 
Desert or throng, the city or the river, 
Melts in a lucid Paradise of air. 


“Only like souls I see the folk thereunder, 
Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be 
kings— 
Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, 
Sadly contented in a show of things. 


‘’Then with a rush the intolerable craving 
Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call— 
Oh to save these! to perish for their saving, 
Die for their life, be offered for them all! 


‘“‘Give me a voice, a cry, and a complaining, 
Oh let my sound be stormy in their ears! 
Throat that would shout but cannot stay for straining, 
Eyes that would weep but cannot wait for tears. 


“Quick in a moment, infinite forever, 
Send an arousal better than I pray, 
Give me a grace upon the faint endeavor, 
Souls for my hire and Pentecost to-day!” 


Have you never felt the same way? 


For DIscussiIon 


1. At one time when the minister was the most learned 
man in his community and books were not in 
general use, the sermon was a useful feature of 
the church. Do you think that the minister to-day 
could put in the time he spends preparing his ser- 
mons to better advantage in pastoral or educa- 
tional work? 

2. Ought a minister to be active in the politics of the 
Republican and Democratic parties? 

3. Ought a minister ordinarily to wear a clerical collar? 

200 


THEeMINISTRY AT HOME 


Why? Why not? Is it better for him to wear a 
gown in the pulpit? 

4. Ought a minister to accept fees, aside from his regu- 
lar salary, for weddings? funerals? Why? 

5. Should a minister seek a church, or always wait 
until a church seeks him? 

6. May sermons be repeated? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


7. Find out all you can about the most famous sermon 
ever preached—the Sermon on the Mount. Where 
is it found? Is it one sermon? What is its general 
theme? There is another version of it—where? 
Which version is the older? Which would you call 
its most famous verse? 

8. Ministers must plan the general work of their church 
at least a year in advance. Make out such a plan. 
When will you emphasize the culture of devotional 
life and evangelism? How long should the pastor’s 
class for young people in preparation for church 
membership continue? When stress spiritual wel- 
fare of youth and religious education? What will 
the church do during the summer season? When 
will you hold Rally Day? When will you have 
your Every-Member Canvass for funds? 

9. Describe how H. W. Beecher, Phillips Brooks, Peter 
Cartwright, F. S. Spaulding, Roswell Bates, or 
some other well-known preacher came to enter 
the ministry. 

10. Make a list of the qualifications needed for the min- 
istry which you now feel weakest in. What will 
you do to strengthen yourself in each particular? 


For REFERENCE 
L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter VI. 
F. M. Harris and J. C. Robbins, A Challenge to Life Serv- 
ice, Chapter X. 
201 


CHAPTER XXIII 
OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY 


TIME was when the church’s only ministry was 
preaching and pastoral work. But in order to 
meet the needs of modern times Christian denom- 
inations have enlarged their corps of workers to 
include men trained for many other vocations. 
The variety of workers needed is suggested in the 
chart on the opposite page. 

The business of the church.—Since the amount 
of money which the church spends annually for 
the good of the world runs into nine figures, and 
almost ten, it is obvious that many men trained in 
the principles and practices of out-and-out business 
must be employed to handle the finances. The 
great programs for expansion at home and abroad 
planned every year by the denominations call for 
organizers and executives of first-rate ability. 
And what need for advertising experts!—to put 
out posters, charts, cartoons, bulletins, motion- 
picture films, statistics. Many a national denom- 
inational secretary has been offered a position in 
the secular business world with a handsome salary, 
many times larger than the churches pay, and has 
refused to accept it because he thought his business 
ability counted for more in the definitely religious 
field. 

Robert E. Speer, president of the Federal Council 
of Churches of Christ in America, early in his 
career heard Henry Drummond answer the ques- 

202 


OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY 


THE CHURCH 


The ministry of preaching 
Bishops and assistants 
District superintendents 
Evangelists 
Pastors and assistants 


The ministry of business 
Clerks 
Executives 
Publicity agents 
Secretaries 
Stenographers 
Treasurers 


The ministry of health 
Dentists and assistants 
Hospital superintendents 
Internes 
Nurses 
Pharmacists 
Physicians and surgeons 


The minisiry of education 
Board secretaries 
Church and community directors of religious education 
College deans 
College professors 
Librarians 
School supervisors 
Secondary and primary school teachers 


The ministry of publication 
Board secretaries 
Editors 
Tilustrators 
Printers 
Publishers 
Translators 
Writers 


The ministry of social service 
Athletic and playground directors 
Board secretaries 
Case workers 
Recreational leaders 
Superintendents of homes for dependents 
Survey workers 
Workers among foreign-born 


The ministry of art and music 
Architects 
Choir leaders 
Organists (After Leonidas W. Crawford and others.) 


203 


‘OUT INTO LIFE 


tion “‘How may a man know the will of God?” 
with the words: 


Think. Pray. Talk to wise people, but do not regard 
their decision as final. Beware of the bias of your own 
will, but do not be afraid of it. When decision and action 
are necessary, go ahead, and be assured that He whose 
spirit led you in this choice will vindicate the choice at 
the end. 


Doctor Speer followed the advice to the letter 
—and is it not food for thought that he did not 
become a regularly ordained minister, but has 
devoted his brilliant powers to the executive work 
of the church? 

The church and the world’s health.—Since the 
day when Jesus “‘went about, healing every sick- 
ness and every disease among the people,” the 
church has been the foe of ill health. The modern 
hospital owes its creation to the church, and though 
in the United States most hospitals now no longer 
are connected with any ecclesiastical body, yet the 
Protestant churches still support four hundred of 
them. Practically all the medical institutions in 
backward heathen lands are still administered by 
the Christian communions which established them. 
Here are opportunities aplenty for men trained in 
medicine who wish to give their lives implicitly to 
Christ’s church. 

The church as educator.—The profession of the 
director of religious education has already been 
considered, but the church has a stake in general 
education as well. Can Christian people rest when 
seven out of every hundred people in America 
can neither read nor write? 

204 


OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY 


In the United States it is especially imperative 
that the church should not neglect the public 
educational system, for, owing to the strict sepa- 
ration of church and state, there is a constant 
danger that the teaching of the three R’s and 
the mass of allied subjects of a purely material 
nature will crowd out of the curriculum all in- 
struction in moral ideals. Knowing that culture 
without morality is a menace to any nation, the 
church therefore maintains her interest in general 
education. Everywhere she makes her influence 
felt in the public schools, and in many places she 
has her own academies, colleges, and universities. 
These provide life-careers within the church for 
educators. 

No adequate history of American thought could 
be written without including such names as Edward 
Everett, Timothy Dwight, and Jonathan Edwards, 
all of whom were churchmen who became college 
presidents. And to-day it is likely that the church- 
men who are acting as presidents, professors, and 
teachers, since they are in touch with the future 
leaders, are exerting as great an influence for good 
upon the country as the preachers. Think it over! 

The church as a publisher.—The great need for 
strong men as editors, article-writers, and pub- 
lishers of religious books and periodicals has already 
been mentioned. 

The church as a social worker.—The leading 
denominations are on the lookout for men who 
will train themselves as experts in the service of 
industrial communities, as chaplains and welfare 
workers in prisons, and as superintendents of 
charitable institutions of various types. No mod- 

205 


« OUT INTO LIFE 


ern school for the education of ministers and lay 
workers in the church is without its chair of social 
service. 

The ministry of art and music.—If you love art 
or music, the church needs you also. Michelangelo 
designed Saint Peter’s Cathedral. Bach began 
composing as organist of the church in Arnstadt. 
Modern art and music took shape in the bosom 
of the church. 

The stern influence of so-called Puritanism has 
robbed some communions of the ministry of the 
fine arts, but to-day on every hand there is a notice- 
able movement to enrich the worship of Protestant- 
ism with all the inspiration the artist and musician 
can bring to it. You may be—who knows?—the 
new Michelangelo or new Bach, the reincarnation 
of Christopher Wren or Charles Wesley, who will 
create in the church a revival of the ministry of 
beauty. 

Other arms of the church.—The church is re- 
lieved of no little labor by agencies which both in 
past history and present sympathy are closely 
associated with it. They make a long list—the 
Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
ciations, the International Sunday School Associa- 
tion, the American Bible Society, the American 
Red Cross, and scores of others—and they all 
offer vocations of remarkable usefulness. 

The ministry abroad.—What will it profit us if 
the American and European nations become Chris- 
tian, and the rest of the world is left in ignorance, 
sickness, and hatred? Humanity is one body, no 
part of which can be healthy if other parts are 
diseased. 

206 


OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY 


In the foreign field the medical, social, and other 
nonpreaching ministries of the church must be 
united with preaching. It is there that poverty 
is the direst, human life shortest, infant mortality 
most terrible, sanitation most neglected, populations 
most illiterate, women most degraded, Christian 
literature most lacking, and general social con- 
ditions most vicious. 

The need of bringing Christ to the whole world 
was never more critically acute than it is to-day. 
Nations that have been considered backward are 
beginning to stir. Is China to become a giant 
bent upon brigandage or benevolence? It is cer- 
tain that she will take one course or the other, 
depending upon whether or not she imbibes the 
spirit of Christianity. Is Japan to become an 
atheistic, hate-engendering citizen in the world 
community? Christian missions are the only safe- 
guard. Will the Mohammedan world, now awaking 
to its strength, play fair or foul? Only Christ’s 
gospel of brotherhood, preached to the ends of 
the earth, can save humanity. 

Rewards.—The missionary receives a pitiably 
small wage. Pitiably? Not one of them would 
allow the use of the word. Read David Livingstone: 


People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so 
much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice which 
brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the 
consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright 
hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the 
word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is 
emphatically no sacrifice. I never made a sacrifice. 


A joy many missionaries have mentioned is that 
207 


. OUT INTO LIFE 


brought by constantly occurring adventure. Said 
a missionary on furlough to his brother in a pas- 
torate at home, ‘‘How can you stay here preaching 
every week to a set of sermon-soaked saints in the 
pews, who doubtless know more about the Bible 
and the Christian life than you do, when you 
might be out on the frontier of Africa, South Amer- 
ica, or the great East, where whole cities, whole 
nations, are crying for your services, and where 
the very demand creates its daily adventures?” 
Questions like this are difficult to answer. 
Missionaries acquire a unique cultural education. 
One cannot live either in the cities like Constan- 
tinople or Hong Kong, where the races meet and 
exchange their wares and ideas, or in the interior 
stations, where one comes into touch with the 
habits and customs of a people, without becoming 
something of a cosmopolitan. Charles R. Watson, 
president of the American University in Cairo, 
for instance, possesses the wisdom of a great states- 
man: it is impossible that a man of his ability 
should have grown into anything else—in Egypt. 
The qualifications.—The essential quality needed 
in the young man who is deciding for the foreign 
field becomes the source of his supremest joy—a 
complete dedication to the work of God. He 
must have an unquenchable passion for bringing 
people into the wonderful fellowship of the gospel. 
He must have a hardy constitution. Mission- 
aries need not all be as robust as Bishop Rowe, 
who guides his own dog team over one or two thou- 
sand miles of Alaskan snow every winter, but 
the hours for all of them are likely to be irregular, 
and food scanty and poor. The missionary needs 
208 


OTHER PHASES OF THE MINISTRY 


adaptability to meet new and changing conditions. 
He needs initiative. Indeed, with his vast oppor- 
tunity, he cannot be too versatile, too mentally 
awake, too strong of character. 

His preparation depends entirely on what his 
profession is to be—educator, evangelist, social 
worker, or what else—but it must be complete. 
None of the mission boards of the great denom- 
inations will consider candidates not thoroughly 
trained. 

Does not C. Silvester Horne’s tribute to the 
missionaries send your red corpuscles racing in 
your arteries? 


No range of mountains has been high enough to stay 
their progress; no rivers deep and broad enough to daunt 
them; no forests dark and dense enough to withstand 
their advance. Wherever they went they trod a pilgrim 
road, and flung forth their faith, often to a skeptical and 
scornful generation. But what heeded they? They 
passed onward from frontier to frontier, “the legion that 
never was counted,” and, let us add, that never knew 
defeat. 


For DIscussiIon 

1. Is financial prosperity a result of righteous living? 

2. Should hospitals be run by the state or the church? 

3. Are not denominational schools likely to be more 
narrow in their teaching than nonsectarian schools? 
Would you do away with them? 

4. Who wields the greater influence, the editor of a reli- 
gious weekly with a circulation of five thousand, 
or the preacher whose weekly congregation num- 
bers five thousand? 

5. “God hath made of one blood all nations of the 
earth.’’ Then are we all equal in his sight? Has 


209 


Los 


~ OUT INTO LIFE 


he endowed the Negro race with as high mentality 
as the northern European? Should races inter- 


marry? | 


. Which counts for most, the medical, social, educa- 


tional, or evangelistic mission? 


For FurtTHER STUDY 


. Read John 4. 4-42; Matthew 8. 5-13; and Mark 7. 


24-30. What is the common element in these 
incidents? 


. Show by examples how religions can be rated in ex- 


cellence by the place they assign to women. 


. If you were given $5,000,000 to send to some one 


mission field, where would you send it? Why? 
How would you have answered the question of the 

missionary on furlough beginning “How can you 

stay here ... 2? Give your answer in detail. 


For REFERENCE 


L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapters 


Nip GBs OOO 8. 


210 


CHAPTER XXIV 


POINTS TO CONSIDER IN JUDGING A 
VOCATION 


PROBABLY the time has not yet come when you 
must definitely choose your life-work; and the 
longer you can postpone the choice, the wiser you 
will probably be when you make it. Since you 
must some day, however, come to a decision, you 
cannot too soon begin analyzing the various voca- 
tions for their good points and comparing them 
with one another. What questions ought a man to 
ask regarding the life-work he has in prospect? 

Promotion and expansion.—Should not a leading 
question be: Would the occupation allow for 
progress? Is not one mark of a good position the 
fact that it prepares for a better? The teller in 
the bank may become cashier; the first mate, 
master of the ship; the interne, a physician in full 
standing. 

While many excellent vocations do not offer 
promotion, they admit of expansion themselves. 
For a shrewd business man in a field where the 
market is large, for the gifted lawyer in a great 
city, or the president of a going industrial concern, 
there is no position higher up, but there is every 
chance of broadening one’s business or practice. 

“Study the job just above you” is good counsel. 
Steer clear of the job where it cannot be followed! 
Errand boys, office boys, cash boys, and even 
certain counter salesmen should ask themselves 

211 


‘ OUT INTO LIFE 


in all seriousness whether they are getting any 
experience which will fit them for a more respon- 
sible position. One is reminded of the song Geoffrey 
Dearmer wrote for the elevator man: 


“Fourth floor, going down— 
Hardware, underwear, and hose. 
Third floor, going down— 

Toys, tobacco, children’s clo’es. 
Second floor, going down— 

Linen, perfume, sports, and shoes. 
First floor, going down— | 
Gramophones, pianos, news. 
Ground floor, going down— 

Hats, books, dresses, furs, and frocks. ° 
Basement floor, bargain store— 
Fish, fruit, art, hair-cutting, clocks. 
Ground floor, going up— 

Hats, books, dresses—read the rime, 
Upward, downward, 

Upward, downward, 

Stop at six— 

It’s closing time.” 


Is this man’s mental growth preparing him for 
promotion? 

Health and bodily ability—Again, will not a 
young man wisely ask regarding the occupation he 
considers taking up how much opportunity it 
would give him to build up his health and strength? 

Would the work be indoors or outdoors? Would 
one sit or stand? Would there be eye strain or 
nerve strain of any sort? Would meals be irregular 
or the food poor? Would the air be foul? Would 
the heart be overtaxed? Would there be special 
dangers? Professions like the coaching of athletics 

212 


JUDGING A VOCATION 


might be reckoned almost one hundred per cent 
healthy, as against structural steel work, for in- 
stance, which is attended with great risks. 

In greater or less degree all good vocations allow 
a man to train his nerves and muscles for expert 
work of some sort. The artist cultivates deft 
fingers, the smith, a powerful right arm. What 
bodily control, if any, would the vocation you are 
considering give you? 

How much in wages would the occupation pro- 
vide?—Men of small vision make the money income 
the only test of their future vocation; and though 
mature men know that the wage is only one of 
the rewards of work, it is yet a factor to be con- 
sidered. A man must have a sufficient salary for 
his own usefulness to his fellows. If it is insufficient, 
he cannot educate his family—and it is hardly a 
service to the world to leave one’s children ignorant. 
Neither can he provide for his own and his wife’s 
old age—and to become a charge on the town is 
hardly good citizenship. Neither can he share in 
the charitable work of the community. Money 
for oneself alone, without a thought of others, is 
materialized selfishness, but money put to the 
service of God’s work on earth is a different matter. 
- It is essential for a young man to know what a 
prospective employment pays at the start, on the 
average, and as a maximum. He must estimate 
the probable rate of increase for himself, reckoning 
his wage always in terms of the year, rather than 
the month or week, to cover the seasons in which 
work and income are slack. 

Time off.—How much leisure would be allowed? 
is another pertinent question. Much of the world’s 

213 


OUT INTO LIFE 


necessary work is drudgery, but men are able and 
willing to endure it if they have sufficient leisure 
to pursue their real interests. Leisure is indeed. 
the birthright of every one. All of us should give 
ourselves time to cultivate the gardens of our 
minds. All work and no play makes Jack a dull 
man. Leisure permits him to have a hobby, which 
not only gives him pleasure, but makes him more of 
an all-round person. It allows him time for direct 
service to his church and community. 

Social recognition.—All of us like to be liked. 
We ought to be judged rather by what we are than 
by what we do, but tradition dies hard, and many 
of our fellow men will still unconsciously rate us 
in the social scale, as our fathers did in the old 
countries, according to vocations. There are snobs 
who are readier to bow to a banker than a mechanic. 
It is probably worth while to give at least passing 
consideration to the question, How much social 
recognition would the vocation offer me? 

Intellectual, emotional, and moral growth.—The 
question to which probably the most careful answer 
must be given is: How much opportunity for intel- 
lectual, emotional, and moral growth would there 
be in the vocation? 

A man has a right to demand that his profession 
or business strengthen him in mind. It must give 
him problems to think about, and no problems 
which can be solved by a boy are fit for a man. 
A really good occupation constantly challenges one 
to be more discerning, accurate, open-minded, and 
inventive. 

The best vocations help a man cultivate his 
finer sensibilities. The worst deaden them, as the 

214 


JUDGING A VOCATION 


counting-house business did in Scrooge and Marley. 
A young man may well be shy about going into. 
any occupation which seems to have the effect of 
making its workers greedy, smug, or cold-hearted, 
melancholy, trifling, or timid, or in any way con- 
tent with low standards. 

If a vocation is to help a man grow, it must also 
give him play for his best moral impulses. It 
has been noticed that a position of responsibility 
often tends to steady a previously unreliable man. 
He becomes regardful of his obligations, fair in his 
dealings, sympathetic, and tactful. Is this the 
effect of the vocation you are looking toward? 

Each vocation has two sides.—So far our ques- 
tions have been concerned only with the benefits 
a prospective occupation would confer, but for 
every one of these benefits it offers, it also makes 
a certain demand. 

If, for instance, it offers a man a chance to 
broaden his experience and prepare himself for 
promotion, it demands a certain grade of prepara- 
tion and experience on its own part. One must 
ask how many years of apprenticeship or how much 
technical schooling it calls for. A young high-school 
graduate who has been left by his father’s death 
with a large family depending upon his earnings 
can hardly regard medicine as a possibility, for 
between him and his first income in that profession 
lie eight years or more of expensive preparation. 
He must enter a business where the pay begins 
coming in immediately and acquire his education 
while he is working, either within the business 
itself or outside. 

One would needs ask, further, how much of 

215 


* OUT INTO LIFE 


physical health the vocation would require. Robert 
Louis Stevenson was a delightful writer of books, 
but with his chronic illness he never could have 
been a builder of lighthouses, as his father in- 
tended him to be. 

What trained nerves and muscles would the 
vocation demand? Some call for strength of hand, 
some for strength of back and arms. The man 
who could act as a jockey could not qualify as a 
feller of trees. Some occupations demand better 
eyesight than others, some better hearing. Nose 
and throat, arches of the feet—all these things are 
to be considered. 

How much in capital does an occupation demand? 
is a question complementary to the one regarding 
wages. Many enterprises have been wrecked be- 
cause men have not answered it correctly. Where 
a man works for a salary or wage, little or no capital 
is needed to start him, but where he engages in 
business for himself, he must have the wherewithal 
to tide him over the lean years when he is building 
up his trade. Two young men who went into the 
high-grade barber business opened a magnificent 
shop in which there was everything one could 
desire—except customers. After a few weeks the 
customers began to come, but it was then too late: 
the owners had run so heavily into debt that their 
creditors would wait no longer. They had to 
sell out: had they had one thousand dollars more 
of capital, they could have floated the venture. 

Is the vocation interrupted by seasons of idle- 
ness? How much time off does it enforce? The 
dairyman does not generally receive so high a weekly 
wage as the coal-miner, but his work is steadier. 

216 


JUDGING A VOCATION 


Strange and wrong as it may seem, in the present 
state of our common life good social standing is 
required for certain occupations, especially those 
in which one is brought into contact with persons 
who consider themselves high in the social scale. 
A bond salesman, for instance, or a life-insurance 
agent who can enter into the homes of the self- 
called elite and talk with them as a social equal 
has an immense advantage over his competitors 
who cannot do so. What is the demand of the 
vocation you are considering? 

The higher vocations want men who have what 
is called ‘‘personality.”’ No quality eludes analysis 
more tantalizingly. It has been defined as “that 
which makes a person a leader’”—and the definition 
is good as far as it goes. It is doubtless true that 
the keener you are in intellect, the more refined 
in feeling, and, especially, the sturdier you are in 
moral character, the more of this quality you will 
possess—but specifically, what is it made up of? 
Many lists of the characteristics which compose it 
have been attempted—one of them is given in the 
last part of the chart in the next chapter—but none 
of them are found satisfactory by everybody. 

Such a list of desirable traits may at least serve, 
however, to show that there are component parts 
in a man’s intellectual, emotional, and moral 
make-up, and that they are not all in equal demand 
in the various vocations. A soldier, for example, 
has more need for fearlessness than a scholar, a 
judge more need for level-headedness than a writer 
of melodrama. How about the work you are 
contemplating? 

It is up to you!—The essential need is that you 

217 


"OUT INTO LIFE 


should yourself begin to compare the vocations 
with one another, analyzing them according to 
your own standards. Others can make lists and 
write books about the subject for you, but no one 
else can do your thinking. If you wish to avoid 
becoming the square peg in the round hole, your 
best motto for the future is: “‘Think—don’t drift!” 


For Discussion 


1. Which man is more likely to succeed—the man who 
starts upon his life-work early or late? How early? 
How late? 

2. The Epicurean philosophers said that unhappiness is 
partly due to man’s desire for promotion or prog- 
ress, and that therefore to be happy a man should 
be content with his lot. Were they right? 

3. It has been said that men of dark hair and com- 
plexion make better buyers and men of light hair 
and complexion better sellers. Is there anything 
in this? 

4. If a man’s main motive is to serve his fellow men, 
should he ever ask his boss for a raise in wages? 

5. Do you think it really is the mark of a snob to be 
“readier to bow to a banker than a mechanic’’? 
Ts not this simply ordinary human nature? 

6. The United States Declaration of Independence says 
‘“‘All men are created equal.’’ Is this true? What 
does it mean? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


7. On several occasions Jesus sought to get men to 
change their vocations. What were his reasons in 
each case? Read Luke 5. 1-11, 5. 27-28, 18. 18-30, 
Ig. I-10 (read Zacchzus’ words not as a state- 
ment regarding the past but a promise for the 
future), and 19. 45-48. 

218 


JUDGING A VOCATION 


8. Call on some successful man you know and write up 
the interview as a reporter would for a paper. At 
what age did he choose his vocation? What other 
occupations did he consider going into? What 
decided him? Has he ever thought since of 
changing? What does he call the good points of 
his vocation? 

9g. Look in a World Almanac in a library under ‘‘Princi- 
pal Occupations, New York State.’”’ Which occu- 
pation shows the largest number of male workers? 
Pick out one of the healthiest occupations. One in 
which promotion is likeliest. One of the best paid. 

10. Look at the left-hand side of the chart in the next 
chapter. In what order of importance would you 
put the seven pairs of questions? Why? 


For REFERENCE 
L. W. Crawford, Vocations Within the Church, Chapter I. 


219 


CHAPTER XXV 


POINTS TO CONSIDER IN JUDGING 
YOURSELF 


Note.—Refer constantly to the chart opposite while reading 
this chapter—and to the chapter while reading the chart. 


WHEN you choose your clothes your first con- 
sideration is whether they fit or not. A _ short- 
armed man does not want a long-armed shirt, or 
a man with a thirty-six-inch chest a thirty-four- 
inch coat. 

Getting fitted for a vocation.—Choosing a voca- 
tion is also a question of being properly fitted. 
To make a wise choice, after you have taken the 
measurements of a vocation it is obviously neces- 
sary to match them up with the measurements of 
yourself to see how closely the two correspond. 

Let us, then, assemble the test-questions sug- 
gested in the last chapter and opposite them place 
the corresponding queries regarding vourself, as 
shown in the chart opposite. 

Study the chart carefully.—‘‘How much ambi- 
tion have I for promotion in the field offered?” 

For the answer, let your imagination run: what 
would you do if you had one million dollars left 
to you to do with as you chose? Buy land with 
it? Put it in a bank and watch it? Invest part of 
it in railroad stock?—or in foreign missions? 

Judge future interests by present enjoyments. 
What did you do during your spare time each 
evening last week? Monday?—Tuesday?—do not 

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JUDGING YOURSELF 


skip a night. Was it a party, a new book at the 
library, mending an electric lamp socket at home? 
What? 

How do you spend your money? On coin or 
stamp collections, girls, fishing tackle? All three? 
What else? 

Whatis your hobby? Your favorite book? Hero? 
What magazine do you pick up first in the library? 

What have your favorite studies been? What 
studies have you most disliked? In what have 
you won the best marks? The worst? 

Perhaps you have a hereditary talent. What 
was your father’s vocation? Your grandfathers’— 
on both sides? You may learn something about 
your own interests by studying theirs. 

The answer to the companion question, How 
much of the required preparation and experience 
have I? is relatively simple. 

Health.—The man of rugged constitution needs 
not to be as greatly concerned about building up 
his health as his less fortunate brother. He will 
be more willing to take an indoor occupation, 
relying on open-air exercise after hours to rein- 
vigorate him. 

Bodily ability.—As a general rule, when one has 
any particular bodily ability, a good voice, for 
instance, or a steady hand, he will desire to use 
his ealenta in his vocation. 

Money.—The questions about wages and capital 
speak for themselves. 

Leisure.—The amount of time off a person needs 
is usually a question of health. Teaching, for 
instance, is in many cases a severe mental strain 
and demands a long holiday. 

221 


* OUT INTO LIFE 


The amount of time off a person can afford is 
usually a question of wages. A foreman who is 
paid by the week, for instance, can take little 
pleasure in the announcement that he is to have a 
vacation without pay during the months of July 
and August while the plant is closed. 

Social recognition.—How much social standing a 
man craves can be best estimated by himself— 
how much he possesses, by others. 

Intellectual, emotional, and moral desires and 
abilities.—Each one of the questions regarding per- 
sonal traits detailed on the chart will repay con- 
sideration. Perhaps the most important for a young 
man who has pledged himself to living and helping 
live are the ones in capitals, concerning unselfishness 
and religious influence. 

There are occupations which the world could 
well afford to be without. Thieving, the brewing 
of alcoholic beverages, the manufacture of pure 
luxuries, and the other employments which meet no 
basic human need can hardly appeal to a man who 
is bent upon service. 

One must also ask of a vocation: Would it be 
made more useful if I went into it? Does it need 
more men or is it overcrowded? When twenty- 
four lawyers are enough in a city, would I be per- 
forming a service by making the twenty-fifth? 
No!—unless I had peculiar talents for a type of 
service none of the rest could render. 

The companion question, How much usefulness 
does my vocation demand? is too often overlooked. 
We waste time complaining about how the world 
treats us, forgetting that the world gives men suc- 
cess usually in proportion as they give the world 

222 


JUDGING YOURSELF 


service, and that service is spelled with four letters: 
W-O-R-K. Is it fair to desire from your employer 
wages which represent more than your real useful- 
ness to him? Is it fair to expect more recognition 
from the public than is warranted by your public 
service? Produce your boss more bushels of wheat, 
and he will look after your salary increase: give the 
public real service and the public will patronize you. 

But when it comes to usefulness, what can com- 
pare with the direct man-to-man gift of religious 
faith which a worker may make to his neighbor? 
Give a person fifty dollars, and you have given him 
fifty dollars; give him an insight into God’s friend- 
ship for him and you have given him an inspiration 
which will make his whole life more effective. 

Limitations of the chart.—Remember that this 
chart is only to set you thinking. The good you 
get out of it will depend wholly upon the honesty 
of your thought. 

Measuring either the vocations or yourself is 
excessively difficult. You will get help by making 
copies of the chart and asking various friends, 
your teacher, or your parents, to fill them out 
according to their own judgment of you and the 
occupation you are considering; but the diversity 
of their opinion on certain points will only be an 
indication of the extreme difficulty of this matter 
of measurement. 

The only danger is that you should regard as 
a final classification of yourself either what others 
say about you or what you yourself now think. 
In the first place these are only opinions, and 
opinions are always subject to change. But what 
is more—you yourself, the subject of the opinions, 

223 


OUT INTO LIFE 


are bound to change. You are not a factory- 
made product, turned out once for all, but a living, 
aspiring, growing man, animated by an immortal 
soul. 

Set down even your defects in black and white 
—and be spurred by the sight to outgrow and 
destroy them, or, if they cannot be overcome, to 
learn to live well in spite of them! Do you not 
remember Stevenson laboring for years over the 
phrase-formation of the masters in order that he 
might improve his own English style? God rewards 
us not for our native endowments themselves, 
but for what, with his help and our own will-power, 
we make of them. 

Why not pray about the whole matter? As 
Herald M. Doxsee says, 


Somehow, as the wireless of the soul becomes properly 
adjusted, the wise Father signals in a code that cannot 
be misunderstood concerning our mission among men. 


For DIscussIon 


1. Who is likely to be the best judge of a young man— 
his friends? his acquaintances? his teacher? his 
parents? or himself? 

2. Some say that if a man’s father has been happy in a 
useful occupation, the man himself will be most 
useful if he follows the same trade. Do you be- 
lieve this? 

3. The manufacture of luxuries keeps thousands of 
men employed. Must we not, then, consider this 
a useful vocation? 

4. Fill in the chart for rail-splitting as the occupation 





1 From Getting Into Your Lifework, by Herald M. Doxsee. The 
Abingdon Press. Used by permission. 


224 


Io. 


JUDGING YOURSELF 


and Abraham Lincoln as the individual. Are there 
a number of circles to the left of the crosses? What 
does this mean? 


. Fill in the chart for law as the occupation and Tony 


Marino, the average recent immigrant from Sicily, 
as the individual. Which side of the crosses are 
most of the circles? What does this mean? 


. Should an all-round man be able to put crosses in the 


“much” column for every question? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


. Could the author of Philippians 3. 14 have been con- 


tent to remain only a tentmaker? Do the best 
vocations call for crosses in the ‘‘much” column 
after practically every question? Make the chart 
out for the vocation of Christian missionary and 
Saint Paul as the individual. Do the crosses and 
circles generally tally? In what was he lacking? 
In what was the vocation lacking? 


. Have the vocational side of the chart copied and 


filled out for three vocations you are considering 
by men who know something about them. 


. Have the questions on the chart regarding yourself 


filled out by three people who know you—a parent, 
a teacher, and your minister, perhaps. 

Comparing these answers, fill out the whole chart 
yourself, with thought and prayer, for yourself 
and one of the three vocations. 


For REFERENCE 


G. H. Betts, The Mind and Its Education, Chapter XV, 
edition of 1923. 


225 


CHAPTER XXVI 
GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB 


WILLIAM M. Dower, of the staff of the Manu- 
facturers’ Association of Connecticut, writes: 


There are opportunities in America greater than in 
any other country, but—and this I cannot emphasize 
too strongly—the thing the young man of to-day needs 
to know is that competition is so keen that it takes a 
great deal of struggle to grasp these opportunities, and 
having grasped them to hold onto them. 


How important to get started right! 

Education.—One warning can hardly be put too 
emphatically: the young man who cuts his educa- 
tion short for the sake of getting a job early is a 
fool. He may be forced to do so of sheer necessity, 
but that is a different matter. When you find the 
thoughts drifting through your mind that you 
“have had enough school,” or that it is time you 
were “a man,” slay those thoughts on the spot. 
They have started many a young man on the 
road which leads to mediocrity instead of great- 
ness. The arguments for education need hardly 
to be repeated: specialization counts for more 
when based upon a liberal education—the knowl- 
edge which comes from education is power, for it 
alone teaches the proper way to build a home, rear 
a family, perform one’s duties as a citizen, and 
utilize one’s leisure wisely—and the biggest job 
needs the longest training. 

226 


GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB 


What sort of school will you choose for the 
technical training for your vocation? 

Best of all is the full-time school, such as the 
ordinary trade school, or the post-collegiate school 
for professional training. Here one can devote 
himself wholly to the business of educating himself. 

Perhaps the next best type is the cooperative 
school. Here a student spends every second week 
or fortnight in the classroom and the rest of his 
time at actual work at a business or industry in 
the neighborhood. The system has already been 
worked out in many centers for engineering, the 
machine trades, and all business branches—and the 
number of courses offered is bound to increase 
every year. Under this plan theory and practice 
are combined, with a small wage thrown in. 

The continuation school is one which may be 
attended by a person who is working part of his 
day. He himself in this case must make the coordi- 
nation between his work and his schooling. 

A number of large business and industrial con- 
cerns maintain schools for their employees. Some 
of them require of all their employees, new and 
old, study and growth along the line of their daily 
work. 

In an evening school an adult, provided he is 
regular in his attendance and persistent in his 
study, may make additions to his mental equip- 
ment in almost any department of knowledge. 

Apprenticeship is to-day being extensively re- 
vived, both by employers and by the unions. A 
young man agrees to work for a certain number of 
years on a certain scale of wages, and in return he 
is given instruction in all the phases of a trade. 

227 


OUT INTO LIFE 


Correspondence schools are useful to the adult 
who is able to set aside certain nights every week 
and to study without any stimulus save his own 
ambition—an exceedingly difficult task. 

All these types of education are one in this— 
that your success as a learner depends almost 
entirely upon yourself. But they are all oppor- 
tunities, if rightly responded to, for you to win the 
first essential of vocational success: preparation. 

And remember above all things that though your 
full-time education must stop sometime, your 
education ought to stop—never. The man who 
grows in prosperity and usefulness is the man who 
studies to improve himself no matter how old 
he grows. 

Selecting a town.—A first question is, In what 
part of the world will I look for a job? If you have 
no unbreakable home ties, is there any reason why 
you should not consider Paris, France, or Cairo, 
Egypt, as much as Paris or Cairo, Illinois? Most 
men settle down in their own home towns as a 
matter of course, and since it is there that their 
acquaintance is largest, this is usually the most 
strategic center for them; but there are multitudes 
of cases where a different location would in the 
end bring greater gains and wider opportunities 
for usefulness. If a young man becomes, for in- 
stance, a life-insurance agent, the chances for his 
success are many times greater in a Texas city 
than in Hartford, Connecticut, for Hartford is the 
citadel of the insurance companies, and the com- 
petition between agents there is exceedingly keen. 

How would you select a town to live in? You 
would first think of it as a market for the wares 

228 


GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB 


you had to sell, whether your wares were canned 
goods or executive ability. This would lead to an 
inquiry not only into its gross size and present 
rate of growth but also into the size and growth 
of the class of people likely to desire what you 
have to offer. You would need to know the num- 
ber of men already practicing your vocation there. 
Connecticut has a physician for every three hundred 
and sixty people or so: China has one for every 
four hundred thousand people. On the basis of 
mere statistics you have a greater call to be a 
medical missionary in Pekin than to be a prac- 
titioner in New Haven. 

One must think of a town also as the place where 
practically all one’s life outside his business hours 
is to be lived. Is it healthy?—a good place to 
bring up children? Are the schools under enlight- 
ened supervision, or will your children have to 
suffer from antiquated methods of teaching? Will 
it give you mental food for growth in your pro- 
fession as well as in general culture? 

What of the community’s social and religious life? 
Is it such that you would like to have young people 
grow up in it? 

On the other hand, a man of strong personality 
can often make a contribution to his community. 
The very backwardness of his neighbors is a chal- 
lenge to him; and if, without injuring his own 
character and impairing his family’s future useful- 
ness, he can minister to his community simply by 
living in it, he performs no unworthy service. 

Getting a job.—The greater number of oppor- 
tunities a man has, the better his chance of choos- 
ing the right job. He can learn of opportunities 

229 


“OUT INTO! LIFE 


through his friends and business acquaintances. 
The help wanted ads in general newspapers and 
trade journals bring suggestions. Often one may 
read in a paper or magazine of the opening of a 
new plant or an old one reorganizing; and these 
mean opportunity. There are regular employment 
agencies which make a business of fitting a man 
to a job. 

You yourself may advertise for a position. Every 
trade has its own periodicals, and these are widely 
read. By a study of the advertisements previously 
published, by reading some of the books on adver- 
tising, and by using your own good judgment, 
you will be able to write an attractive paragraph. 
Employers looking for men often read through such 
advertisements with great care, forming their judg- 
ment about a man from the character of his ad. 
If it is in good size, artistically executed, designed 
to catch the eye, and containing pertinent facts, 
it will convince the reader that the writer possesses 
mental qualifications not to be despised. 

When you have heard of a job you think you 
would like to have, you will desire to learn all you 
can about it. Only the young man who is very 
foolish or very hard up hawks his services from 
door to door on a business street and takes the job 
which turns up first. The chart in the last chapter 
may guide you in testing a job for its good points. 

You would especially want information regard- 
ing the men who would employ you. What are 
your prospective employers’ general ideals? Are 
they men who are in business simply for what 
they personally get out of it, or do they have a 
desire, like yourself, to live and help live? Would 

230 


GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB 


you have to fight to establish this viewpoint? 
Would your associates be a mental and moral 
tonic to you or so much dead weight? Would 
your superiors give you a chance to advance your- 
self, or are they all of a jealous type, who would 
fear that any increase of pay or position to you 
would mean so much less to them? Are they honest 
men, as good as the word they give you, or would 
you feel constantly that you were in the midst 
of a gang of refined thieves and liars? The whole 
question of employment simmers down to the 
matter of personality: what kind of men are they 
who run the concern you are considering and who 
would be associated with you 

But it may not be easy to pick and choose. It 
may be impossible to do so. There is no such 
thing as an ideal concern. You can find fault 
with any board of managers. A young man must 
take the best of the opportunities offered him. 

Getting a job is essentially a matter of sales- 
manship, you yourself being both salesman and 
article to be sold. There are scores of books on 
how to secure a position. Here are a few pointers 
culled from some of them, especially from William 
L. Fletcher’s How to Get the Job You Want. 

Before you are given a job the employer will 
desire an interview with you. Such interviews 
are not always easy to secure. Perhaps a pre- 
liminary letter will be necessary. If so, express 
yourself as clearly and attractively as you can. 
Be courteous. Write from the viewpoint of the 
man to whom your letter is addressed. Write such 
a letter as you would like to have come to you. 
And write it on good stationery. 

231 


* OUT INTO LIFE 


When you are granted your interview, be sure 
to maintain the viewpoint of your prospective 
employer. Imagine the conversation in advance: 
know what his natural objections to you will be 
—insufficient education, lack of experience, and the 
rest—and be prepared to answer him without false 
modesty but with all truth: you have worked during 
the summer—you have already tested yourself by 
the work in school—you have held class offices— 
you are active in social and club life—in church 
organizations and elsewhere you have enjoyed 
executive work—and so on. 

The man you interview will be asking himself 
while you are talking, “Is this a full-grown man 
whom I am talking to? Has he the stuff in him 
to do a man’s job?” Here, as everywhere, your 
religion, though you will not think of it at all, 
will have its effect. If you talk and act with fitting 
Christian modesty combined with Christian manli- 
ness, the man opposite cannot help but become 
interested in you. If you are technically prepared, 
he will desire your assistance. 

How to keep your job.—Hundreds of books and 
magazine articles have been written on the factors 
of success, and they all can be reduced to this: 
be an intelligent Christian. 

Taking it for granted that you have the mental 
ability and preparation for your work, the essen- 
tials of success are simply the old Christian virtues 
which we have all been taught from infancy. These 
traits of character toward which our parents and 
teachers have continually pointed us are not, 
after all, the mere goody-goody excellences which 
we have sometimes believed them—they are the 

232 


GETTING AND KEEPING A JOB 


cold essentials of common vocational success. They 
are more at home and useful in the great world 
than in the Sunday school. 


For DIScussION 


1. Which do you consider the best type of school for 
business administration—the full-time, or the co- 
operative school? Why? 

2. Do you believe the large city or the small town is the 
better place for a man to start as lawyer? as dry 
goods merchant? as harvester manufacturer? as 
electrical engineer? Upon what factors must you 
decide? 

3. Should a young man borrow money to educate him- 
self? Under what conditions, if at all? 

4. Which cities in the United States are likely to grow 
most during the next ten years? 

5. Which is better for the ordinary man, the small col- 
lege or the large university? 

6. Should a man join a school or college fraternity? 
Why do educators speak of fraternities as a ‘‘prob- 
lem”? Should a man get into the extra-curriculum 
activities in school or college? 


For FuRTHER STUDY 


7. Did Christ give any time to educating himself? Did 
he start preaching early? Did Paul? In what 
profession were the best educated men in New 
Testament times? In what did their education 
consist ? 

8. After looking up ‘‘Wanted—a position” ads in a 
newspaper, write one yourself as for a man twenty- 
five years old, who desires to find work in a dry 
goods business. 

9. Talk to some man who has worked or is working his 
way through college and report in detail how he 
earned or earns his money. 


233 


‘OUT INTO LIFE 


10. Talk toa successful man and report on how he makes 
time to study. What books has he read recently? 
To what journals does he subscribe? Does he use 
the public library much? 


For REFERENCE 
R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Chapter IX. 


234 


CHAPTER XXVII 


YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY 


THOUGH your vocation will absorb most of your 
waking hours, it will not take them all—nor should 
it, for life is greater even than life-work. How 
will you put your unemployed time to greatest use? 

“You cannot, I cannot, but we can.”—Though 
there are many tasks a man can perform well by 
himself, in their greater enterprises men have 
worked together in communities. They have found, 
for instance, that the best way to educate their 
children in knowledge and skill is by providing 
community schools; that the best method of pro- 
tecting themselves, their homes, and their businesses 
from lawlessness is by appointing a community 
police force; that the best way to maintain their 
own highest aspirations—toward God, destiny, and 
the great facts of life—is through the churches, 
which are community institutions. 

A selfish man will not bother his head about 
his community, but the young man who has de- 
cided not only to live but also to help live will 
look forward eagerly to join his public-spirited 
neighbors in working for the common good. 

You are probably not much younger than the 
Athenian youths when they became of age. Those 
who were deemed worthy of full citizenship were 
conducted to the great Temple of Aglaurus, and 
there with ceremony were presented with certain 


239 


“OUT INTO LIFE 


weapons—symbols of their sacred duties to their 
city. Then solemnly in the hushed assembly each 
young man took an oath: 


I will not disgrace these holy arms. 

I will not desert a comrade. 

I will stand for whatsoever things are honorable, in 
private and public, alone and with many. 

The city of our fathers I will hand on not less but 
more noble and more excellent than I received it. 

T will hearken to those set in authority. 

I will obey the laws already established and those the 
people shall yet establish. 

The faith of our fathers I will honor: God is the judge 
of all things. 


An oath like that is worthy to be learned by 
heart by any young man in any community. No 
wonder Athens became a famous city, with her 
young men sworn to make her “more noble and 
more excellent”! And any town—your town— 
will be prospered if her young men—you—will unite 
in service. 

Men serve their community through their occu- 
pations themselves, provided these really fill an 
economic or cultural need. The best-known towns 
in the United States have been made by the business 
of their citizens. Gloversville is the product of 
the glove industry; Danbury, of hat manufacture. 
Many western Pennsylvania towns died when the 
oil boom failed. When “the beer that made Mil- 
waukee famous’ was outlawed as a_ beverage, 
Milwaukee was correspondingly impoverished. For- 
tunately, beer was not the only product that made 
Milwaukee famous, and legitimate trades sustain 

236 


YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY 


the city. Good business and good business men 
are a boon to any community. 

Some people seem to think that this indirect 
service a man gives his town by working at his 
own business is all the city needs. But cast your 
eye over our civic and village communities—their 
chief ornaments are the work of men after business 
hours! Their churches would decay if it were 
not for the direct unpaid labor of men and women. 
Their whole government machinery, including the 
public school boards, would be ruined if it were 
not for the volunteer participation in politics on 
the part of their citizens. All their charitable 
institutions, large and small, would topple and col- 
lapse if the freely given support of interested people 
were withdrawn. Your community has need of 
you outside of your business. 

The church.—The oldest agency for community 
welfare is the church, and through it, still, a man 
may put forth the richest treasures of his per- 
sonality in behalf of his neighbors. 

The church exists first of all for worship. Who 
can compute how much this one act avails to build 
up the morale of a community? Dr. Charles E. 
Jefferson’s words will bear requoting: 


Worship does a mighty work. It melts the hearts of 
men together. They forget their differences of rank and 
culture and fortunes when they repeat the creed or bow 
their heads in prayer. For the effacing of the lines which 
separate, and the obliteration of the barriers which 
estrange, there is an immeasurable potency in common 
prayer. A congregation devoutly engaged in worship is 
doing something for the community which cannot be 
done in any other way. It is a collective confession of 


23/ 


OUT INTO LIFE 


Christ which outruns in influence the confession of any 
one individual, no matter how exalted.! 

A man serves his community in a peculiarly 
subtle and effective way by worshiping regularly 
in his church. 

The church also holds out to men of vision and 
vigor an opportunity for active service. There is 
the church school—a chance to pour your highest 
wisdom into the receptive minds of children and 
young people. There are the boys’ and girls’ clubs 
and the adult organizations, each needing only 
the proper leader to make them bearers of Christ’s 
own spirit to the community. 

The whole country mourned when John Joseph 
Eagan died, but it is his own city, Atlanta, which 
misses him most. The division of the Christian 
Church into sects was an abomination to him, as 
it is to many men; but he did what the many are 
not willing to do—he gave his time as well as his 
dreams to bringing the churches together. He 
became president of the Christian Council of the 
city and chairman of the Commission on Church 
Cooperation. A Southerner of the Southerners, 
yet so great a lover of men that he felt narrowed 
by the race prejudice which would have confined 
his good will to a part of mankind, he took the 
lead in developing a plan of cooperation between the 
white and Negro churches of his community that 
eventually furnished the foundation of a nation- 
wide interracial movement. A Negro bishop spoke 
of him, and not without emotion: 





1 Charles E. Jefferson, The Building of the Church. Courtesy of 
The Macmillan Company. 


238 


YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY 


I have often despaired of any real solution of the race 
problem in America. I shall never do so again after 
knowing and working with John J. Eagan. I never 
knew there were in the whole world any white men so 
fair, so just, so devoted to true democracy. 


Does not the life of this churchman give you some- 
thing of a hunger to be like him? 

The government.—Viscount Bryce, one of the 
shrewdest observers the United States ever had, 
called democracy a failure in our cities, and sug- 
gested that the cause of that failure was the indiffer- 
ence of the best people toward the politics of their 
community. And it is true! If there is graft in 
our town government, does it not, since we are a 
democracy, reflect upon all of us who are, or ought 
to be, voters? Some of our fellow townsmen who 
wail loudest about the management of the govern- 
ment are the very ones who allow club affairs, 
petty society events, or sheer laziness to keep 
them out of the political activities proper to every 
citizen. 

It is the standing disgrace of our country that 
sO many citizens are not loyal enough even to vote 
at public elections. 

And to be a force in politics our good citizens 
must do more than cast their ballots on election 
day. Our towns and cities are administered through 
the political parties. Our local governments cannot 
be more advanced than the parties, nor the parties 
than their workers. Yet many citizens seem to 
feel no responsibility for being present at the cau- 
cuses or voting at the primaries, when the party 
candidates are selected. The present deplorable 


239 


OUTLINTO (BIBS 


state of many of our town governments is due 
solely to the complete thoughtlessness of the so- 
called decent people about these matters. 

The genuinely public-spirited citizen will never, 
even between elections, remit his interest in the 
government. If you believe your town needs a 
new charter, better pavements, stronger enforce- 
ment of the law, a budget system for its finances, 
a better-educated school board, more searching 
food inspection, or any other reform, depend upon 
it that these things will never be done unless you 
unite with the other liberal citizens to initiate them. 
Water, taxes, prisons, public franchises—are these 
not your care? 

There was William H. Baldwin, Jr., whose life 
you may study in the fascinating biography by 
James Graham Brooks. In preparatory school and 
college no man was more popular. After grad- 
uation he took a position with the Union Pacific 
Railroad, and with his brilliant intellect, high 
standards, and wonderful human sympathy, he 
made his way rapidly. At thirty-three he became 
president of the Long Island Railroad, part of the 
Pennsylvania System. Though harnessed now to 
a great corporation, he yet indomitably held to his 
ideals, nobly living and helping nobly to live. He 
gave his services lavishly to New York, his home 
city. He was elected chairman of a committee of 
fifteen appointed to combat commercialized prosti- 
tution. He made his power felt immediately. The 
corrupt political bosses of the city, who had their 
own fingers in the filthy business, swore to hound 
him out of town. They attempted to undermine 
his good name, to break up his business organiza- 

240 


YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY 


tion. Finally they forced him to the point where 
he either had to give up his hostility to the organ- 
ized vice, or resign his position with the railroad. 
He chose to resign! But Mr. Cassett, president 
of the Pennsylvania System, to his own honor be 
it recorded, refused to accept the resignation. 
Now, why did this man go so far as even to jeopard- 
ize his life-work? ‘The answer is simple: he recog- 
nized that his community was, as it were, a large 
family to which as a member he owed his best. 

The philanthropies—The interest of the majority 
of the people in civic betterment always lags be- 
hind that of the enlightened minority. ‘The great 
libraries in New York City were founded by James 
Lenox, John Jacob Astor, and other private citizens 
who had a love for their city and a knowledge of 
the value of reading. If the people of New York 
had had to wait for their political leaders to come 
out of Tammany Hall to build the libraries, they 
would probably be waiting yet. 

Philanthropic projects of this sort—libraries, clubs 
for keeping boys out of vicious surroundings, the 
charities in general—being too advanced for the 
government to care for, need, like the church, 
with which they are closely connected, our direct 
voluntary service. 

Neighborliness.—Finally, there is simple neigh- 
borliness. The best gift you can make the people 
of your neighborhood may be your friendship. It 
is not only to the poor and ignorant and manifestly 
needy that you may minister, though these may 
not be neglected: you may bring, by your friendly 
life, a spirit of cooperation to your whole com- 
munity. Let others share your good things. Give 

241 


OUT INTO LIFE 


them your culture. Your home may become a 
center of hospitality. 

For many years in Edinburgh Dr. John Kelman 
and his wife made it their custom to invite young 
men to their home after church on Sunday evenings. 
There they would read aloud or talk about life, 
often far into the morning. Surely, there are few 
delights more magical than this, to be among 
friends at the hearth of a gracious host and hostess, 
where conversation becomes as free and frank as 
one’s own thoughts, and where each person casts 
the gems and precious things of his mind into the 
common store until the whole room is brilliant! 
If the roll were called to-day of the men who owe 
their insight into Christian life to those evenings 
in that home in Edinburgh, hundreds of them 
would rise and gratefully do honor to that host 
and hostess. 

Your home could be made to count that way! 
Your greatest service to Christ may be to be an 
apostle of friendship. 


For DIScussION 


1. Is it better for the town government or a private 
company to operate street railways? 

2. Is it a service to your community to patronize home 
industries? Even when the prices of their pro- 
ducts are higher than elsewhere? 

3. Should prominent men be excused from jury duty? 

4. What is the next improvement which ought to be 
made in your school? 

5. What is the chief cause of juvenile delinquency in 
your town? Movies? dance-halls? pool rooms? 
What? 

242 


YOUR COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY 


6. Should women be eligible to every office in church 
and government? 


For FuRTHER STUDY 


7. Leviticus 19. 11-18 and 30-37 contains some of the 
old Hebrew neighborhood laws. Write them out 
in modern English, bringing them up to date in 
every respect so that they might be used as or- 
dinances for your own community. 

8. When and how was your town founded? Why lo- 
cated where it is? What factors have contributed 
to its growth? Has it in any way declined? Why? 
Who are your famous men and women? What 
did they do? 

9. What are the three most prevalent diseases in your 
town’ Is the death-rate of infants under one 
year rising or falling? Have you curable crippled 
children not being cured? Is there a thorough 
physical examination of school children? How 
does your town arrange for its water supply? 
sewage disposal? food protection? 

ro. Name and describe three improvements you believe 
your community ought to make. 


For REFERENCE 


H. F. Ward and R. H. Edwards, Christianizing Commu- 
nity Life, every chapter. 


243 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE WORLD CITIZEN 


A MAN may be useful in his community and 
yet be unchristian in one fundamental character- 
istic: he may be narrow! His world may be bounded 
by the limits of his neighborhood. Sometimes one’s 
very activity in his home town makes him the 
more parochial: he is too busy to think about hap- 
penings in the great world outside. But Christ 
would have none of that narrowness: he kept return- 
ing again and again to the idea that it is all God’s 
world and the human race is all one family. 

The great world is our concern.—Human inven- 
tions have caused the earth to shrivel. It has 
long been possible for a Chicago business man to 
pick up his paper at noon and read the quotations 
of the Paris bourse of that very morning. It will 
soon be possible for him to do business personally 
in Paris on Monday morning and be at-home in 
Chicago on Tuesday night. 

We are indebted to the rest of the world for 
the ordinary utilities of life. Many of our com- 
monest foods and beverages—our tea, cocoa, coffee, 
and rice—are brought to us from the ends of the 
earth. When the mills and factories of Nuremberg 
and Sheffield are shut down, prices of toys and 
steel goods go up in Tampa and Seattle. When 
people are poor in Europe, the citizens of Con- 
necticut grow poorer, because a market for their 
manufactures is cut off. World commerce is a 


244 


THE WORLD CITIZEN 


single stream carrying prosperity upon it, which, 
if interrupted at any point, must be retarded at 
every other point. If the world has become a 
neighborhood, we can escape neither its responsi- 
bilities nor its dangers. 

Economic relations involve moral relations. How 
can Basil Mathews be refuted?— 


If many of the cotton factories of Japan are run—as 
they are—on cheap female labor which lives under such 
atrocious conditions that every bale of cotton that comes 
from those factories to us is—morally speaking—satu- 
rated with the blood of Japanese womanhood, we are 
involved in blood-guiltiness. If cocoa or rubber or gold 
are procured for us anywhere under conditions where 
men die like flies, and as they die are replaced from 
supposedly inexhaustible reservoirs of cheap labor, the 
brand of Cain is ultimately upon us all. 


If we were not benefited by the work of the peoples 
of the other countries, we might not feel respon- 
sible for the conditions under which they live, but 
when we wittingly use a product which in its making 
has helped debase human life, are we not partners 
to the crime? 

Some Americans do not follow this argument and 
do not believe in troubling themselves about the 
rest of the world. They live and move and have 
their being entirely upon the Main Street of their 
town, whether the town is New York or Jones’s 
Crossing. They are like those who in 1914 scouted 
the idea that the murder of an Austrian crown 
prince in Sarajevo might somehow involve the 
American people. Those persons had opportunity to 


245 


-OUT INTO LIFE 


reflect, when their own sons were suffering the 
tortures of the trenches in France, that no people 
can safely live unto themselves alone. The shrink- 
ing of the world has brought the dangers of the 
great world nearer to us. 

The great world to-day is restless and menacing. 
—Those dangers are being heightened every day. 
Race contacts grow more numerous and compli- 
cated. It is Anglo-Saxon versus Latin, Caucasian 
versus Mongol. The world is becoming crowded. 
There is not enough elbow room for the nations. 
Germany jostles France; Japan, America. 

There is a league for peace which now comprises 
all the nations of the world except the United States, 
Germany, Mexico, and a few others, but the con- 
tinued arming of each nation is an eloquent and 
terrible portrayal of how little mutual trust really 
exists. There is to-day for all our centuries of 
Christianity apparently as much sly intriguing, as 
much bullying of the weak by the strong, as much 
flaunted might against obvious right, as there was 
in the Dark Ages. 

The world’s chief need is as patent as daylight: 
men with a world viewpoint!—in every nation and 
every community, men whose first concern is for 
humanity at large. The world needs what any 
neighborhood needs, men who consult the interests 
of the whole people before they consider their own. 

There is no inherent reason why the close ap- 
proach of the nations to each other should be 
dangerous. The racial contacts, if made in a Chris- 
tian spirit, would result not in more of violence 
but in more of understanding. The hands stretched 
out between the nations may as easily be opened 

246 


THE WORLD CITIZEN 


in mutual welcome as clenched for battle. There 
may be any number of reasons why the races 
should not intermarry and otherwise disregard the 
differences which distinguish them, but this does 
not mean that they should cultivate between each 
other suspicion, hatred, and war, any more than 
the privacy which surrounds each family in a 
neighborhood necessitates backyard quarrels and 
other forms of unneighborliness. 

The world needs world-citizens—not in high 
places only, but everywhere, for no nation is better 
than its average community, and no community 
than its average citizen. 

The great world and the church.—If you and I 
really desire to play the part of world citizens, in 
what better way can we do so than by interesting 
ourselves in the larger work of the church?—for 
the church, more than any other institution, pos- 
sesses the world-view. She has the most compre- 
hensive world program ever spread before men. 
She is definitely attempting to build up an attitude 
of brotherliness between the people of the world, 
regardless of their nationality, language, class, or 
creed. If the world to-day would take the words 
of Christ seriously, and attempt to live in the same 
spirit of forbearance which pervades any happy 
family, all wars and rumors of wars would cease 
to-morrow. It is to this ideal that the church is 
committed, and for the next ten thousand years, 
if necessary, and if the human race persists, she 
will still be laboring to make the ideal a reality. 

The great world and the nation.—As world cit- 
izens we must have an interest in our nation and 
its relation to the other nations of the world. Think 


247 


* OUT INTO LIFE 


of the men about you, young and old—-how many 
of them are really concerned with the foreign 
policy of the present administration? How many 
realize that the peace of the world largely depends 
—because we hold the moneybags—upon the atti- 
tude of the United States government to other 
nations? How many know that certain massacres 
of Armenians may be traced to the unwillingness of 
the United States Senate to take any responsibility 
for that unfortunate country? How many are 
there whose opinion on the League of Nations is 
dictated by their own good brains rather than by 
their party’s policy? How many, in short, are 
really citizens of the world, rather than simply 
narrow-minded creatures, completely given to the 
picayune affairs of their own mud-puddle? The 
average citizen nowhere welcomed the coming of 
the Great War, but he had done nothing to avert 
it—he had been in ignorance of the world situation. 
Perhaps the chief service we can pay our country 
to-day is to study her relation, present and past, 
to the other nations, in order that we may create 
an enlightened public opinion concerning ‘the dan- 
gers she is threatened with and the possibilities 
opened to her. 

Books as broadeners.—How, then, shall we cul- 
tivate this world interest? The easiest way is 
through the books and other kinds of literature 
which come to us. Immanuel Kant never went 
more than thirty miles out of his little town of 
Konigsberg, yet he wrote one of the most fore- 
sighted essays upon world peace ever penned. 
Many men subscribe to a magazine like The Living 
Age, which specializes in articles by citizens of 

248 


THE WORLD CITIZEN 


foreign nations. Some of them subscribe to mag- 
azines in French and German and Italian, in order 
to know the foreign mind at first hand. But in 
our own American newspapers and magazines we 
may find ample information regarding the world 
at large if we will look for it. 

Travel.—A month or so spent by a Northerner 
in one of the Southern States will give him more 
than many books could impart of the true spirit 
of the South. He will know how the Southerner 
feels about the Negro, about the North, about the 
cotton market. So also the Southerner gains his 
best information about the North by visiting there. 
The voyage to France which was forced upon many 
of the young men of the United States during the 
Great War was one of the best bits of education 
they had ever had. It opened their eyes to the 
bigness of the earth. It showed to many of them 
that the people of France are very much like our- 
selves, with the same hopes and fears, the same 
ideals and vices, and yet different. France was 
added to their mental world. 

Men like Immanuel Kant, who never traveled 
and yet had a world viewpoint, are outstanding 
exceptions. Almost all the broad-visioned men of 
the world have traveled. George Washington was 
a great leader for the colonies partly because he 
knew them all from personal observation. Abraham 
Lincoln became a leader to the Middle West, partly 
because he had seen the Middle West, from Chicago 
to New Orleans. 

Many believe that traveling is the privilege only 
of the wealthy. But when there is a will, even in 
poverty, there is always found a way. Lincoln 


249 


* OUT INTO LIFE 


was not burdened with a huge income when he 
went down the Mississippi. Oliver Goldsmith had 
to support himself on his journey through Europe. 
Every summer sees its quota of young college men 
crossing the Atlantic on cattle boats or in the 
steerage. When you have a certain amount of 
education, the mission boards or the great indus- 
trial concerns, like the Standard Oil Company, will 
send you to foreign parts for short terms. Travel 
is a pleasure for all, and for the open-minded man, 
an unsurpassable opportunity for profit. 

Travel is profitable even for short distances. A 
man who knows his state is a man with a larger 
mind than he who knows only his village. 

Friendship of broad-minded people.—Perhaps 
the best way of expanding the limits of one’s mental 
horizon is neither by books nor by travel but through 
friendships. Association with men who are in- 
formed about the world gives one a share in their 
viewpoint. It is doubtful if John, Thomas, and 
the rest of the disciples would have given much 
thought to the world outside of Palestine if it had 
not been for their friendship with Jesus. It was 
his world-embracing love which finally caused Peter 
to see that all men, whether they were clean or 
unclean according to the Jewish law, were his 
brothers. 

What Jesus did for those Galilean fishermen and 
narrow-minded Jews he will do for you. Think 
with him by reading his words. Walk with him 
by reading his life. It is as impossible for a person 
in whom Jesus has planted his gospel not to grow 
broad-minded and sympathetic toward the world 
at large as it is for a rich acre upon which God 

250 


THE WORLD CITIZEN 


sends his seed and sunshine and showers not to 
bear fruit and blossom. 


Io. 


For Discussion 


What is your candid opinion about the lessening of 
the size of the earth through our improved means 
of transportation and communication—do you 
think we are more likely to be engulfed in war 
than we were one hundred years ago or not? 


. Is there anything good to be said for war? 
. Do you believe in the League of Nations? Why? 
. Which do you regard as the most broadening— 


books, travel, or the friendship of the broad- 
minded? 


. What do you regard as the chief cause of interna- 


tional friction? How will we avoid it? 


. How do one’s obligations to the people of his own 


nation compare with his obligations to the people 
of other nations? 


For FuRTHER STUDY 


. In what chapter in Acts does the story of Peter and 


the clean and unclean foods occur? Write a brief 
imaginative sketch of a modern American Peter 
having a similar dream regarding his fellow citi- 
zens. 


. What percentage of the world’s population is Chris- 


tian? What percentage is under Christian gov- 
ernments? What are the three world religions 
besides Christianity? Why is Christianity better? 


. What are the names of the United States senators 


who represent you? Of your congressman? What 
attitude does each have toward the League of Na- 
tions? Japanese immigration? Mexico? 
Name the three books which have had the most 
251 


" OUT INTO LIFE 


broadening effect upon you and tell why they 
have. 


For REFERENCE 


H. E. Luccock, The Haunted House, Chapter VIII. 

G. W. Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapter XX. 

F. M. Harris and J. C. Robbins, A Challenge to Life 
Service, Chapter V. 


252 


CHAPTER XXIX 
HOME AND MARRIAGE 


A MAN’s life is divided between his vocation, his 
community, and, not least, his home. Whether he 
marries or not, he will sooner or later, if he lives 
a normal life, have a room, rooms, or a house fur- 
nished with his own belongings and decorated 
according to his own taste, which he may call 
his home. 

The features of a good home.—The ideal home 
doubtless possesses material comforts. It is well 
heated, well furnished. But essential comforts are 
surprisingly few. Enough nutritious food to permit 
the family to live in good health, and not, as most 
of us do, overeat; enough clothes to keep them 
warmly and neatly dressed, and not overdressed; 
enough room inside and land outside to obviate 
crowding; enough books for mental growth; enough 
decorative art to make the house beautiful; enough 
of everything which makes for strength and nobility 
—these would all be necessary, but none of them 
require excessive wealth. 

In fact, some marvelously happy homes have not 
been far from poverty. The number will never be 
counted of those mothers and fathers who have 
gladly stinted themselves for long years to provide 
for the education of their children. Many wise 
men and women have consciously cultivated the 
severest simplicity. Hawthorne and Longfellow were 
“content with small means.”’ 


253 


OUT INTO LIFE 


There is nothing to be said for poverty when it 
reaches the point where life becomes not more 
simple, but more complex. What sort of home 
life can be enjoyed in a slum tenement, for in- 
stance, where a dozen people, representing three 
or four families, all live and sleep in one room? 

What mental life does the ideal home exhibit? 
I can picture a father with his family gathered 
around him in the evening reading aloud from one 
of the masters of literature. I can see the walls 
of the home paneled with library shelves whence 
every one, from the children beginning school to 
the white-haired grandfather, can draw books of 
interest and inspiration. The conversation at table 
is not given over entirely to the petty topics of the 
daily round: the news of the world, the discoveries 
of science, the ideals of art and literature, the prin- 
ciples beneath current politics—all the deeds and 
hopes of man have their place. The ministry of 
music brings happiness to the hearth. What is 
holier and more satisfying after the day’s work is 
done than for the family to gather and sing or, 
each with his instrument, to play?—for music is 
“love seeking a word.” 

But a home is much more than a combination 
of material and mental resources. There have been 
real homes without either. The chief ingredient 
of a home is, of course, something spiritual. It is 
the atmosphere of unselfish love. The members of 
a Christlike family live and help each other live. 
Though each one of them is a self-commanded indi- 
vidual, they are yet concerned for one another. 

Children growing up in such a home are bound 
to catch this spirit from their elders—the spirit of 


254 


HOME AND MARRIAGE 


individuality combined with self-sacrifice. Theodore 
Roosevelt cannot be fully understood without 
understanding also the spirit of his early home, 
especially the spirit of his father. He wrote: 


I was fortunate enough in having a father whom I 
have always been able to regard as an ideal man. He 
really did combine the strength and courage and will 
and energy of the strongest man with the tenderness, 
cleanness, and purity of a woman. I was a sickly and 
timid boy. He not only took great and untiring care of 
me—some of my earliest remembrances are of nights 
when he would walk up and down with me for an hour 
at a time in his arms when I was a wretched mite suffer- 
ing acutely with asthma—but he also most wisely re- 
fused to coddle me, and made me feel that I must force 
myself to hold my own with other boys and prepare to 
do the rough work of the world. I cannot say that he 
ever put it into words, but he certainly gave me the 
feeling that I was always to be both decent and manly, 
and that if I were manly, nobody would laugh at my 
being decent.! 


All homes, alas! do not contain that spirit of 
manliness and gentleness which young Roosevelt 
found. It does not come by mere chance. The 
secret of its source is glimpsed in another quotation 
from Roosevelt: 


Morning prayers were with my father We used to 
stand at the foot of the stairs, and when my father came 
down we called out, “I speak for you and the cubby- 
hole too!’ There were three of us young children, and 
we used to sit with father on the sofa while he conducted 
morning prayers. The place between father and the 





1 J. B. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time. Courtesy of 
Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers. 


255 


OUTS EN EGY Lie 


arm of the sofa we called the “cubby-hole.” The child 
who got that place we regarded as especially favored 
both in comfort and somehow or other in rank and title.” 


The Roosevelt home was built around the family 
altar. The hearth for all ages has been a sacred 
spot. Religion is in true human love as the bones 
are in the hand. The difference between the mil- 
lions of ordinary homes in America and the com- 
paratively few triumphantly, brilliantly happy homes 
is simply—Christ. 

On getting married.—The kind of home you are 
to have will depend much upon yourself. It will 
also depend upon the wife you choose. And the 
spirit of the whole family, if you have children, 
will depend primarily upon the spirit of the rela- 
tion between yourself and your wife. 

How convenient it would be if the eugenic experts 
would give us a code from which each of us, on 
the basis of our own characteristics, could discover 
just the type of girl we ought to marry! And if, 
then, they would only show us the girl! But life 
is more romantic, and much less cut and dried, 
than that. We choose our own wives and use our 
own standards of judgment. 

This is not such a bad system, only provided our 
standards of judgment are good enough. Ought 
not every young man to do some thinking about 
these standards? If in a confidence I should ask 
you what you would demand in the girl you would 
think of marrying, what would you say? 

First, you would surely lay it down as a rule 
without exception that you should love her and 





2 Autobiography. Courtesy of Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers. 
256 


HOME AND MARRIAGE 


she should love you. There should be love in all 
its fullness, as youth loves youth. Marriage is 
not a dry-as-dust business proposition: there is 
real emotion in it. 

Natural love of this sort is one good standard— 
but to how many it is the only standard! People 
have made the proverb that love is blind. The 
love which is pure passion and nothing else is, of 
course, blind. But the love of intelligent men is 
no more blind than it is deaf and dumb. The 
proverb would better read: “The fool’s love is 
blind.” For consider: the psychologists tell us that, 
if we will, any one of us can “fall in love” with 
practically any one of the other sex! Bodily passion 
is merely a functioning of the nervous mechanism with 
which we are all equipped. And consider further: 
some day that mechanism is going to wear out 
and be discarded—long before the end of our lives, 
long before our home breaks up. When your emo- 
tional life is on the ebb, after the middle of your 
career, what will bind you to your wife and keep 
the home-spirit alive and unspent? And, again: 
during your married life you are almost sure to 
meet some of the more bitter experiences of life— 
disappointments, disillusionments, losses, perhaps 
disease and poverty. Mere passion never stands 
these tests. It has no defense against “stark, 
drear drudgery.” 

A man and a woman need more than physical 
love to live on. There must be common interests. 
Anne C. E. Allinson wrote to a friend contemplating 
divorce: 


Fountains of living water—this is the greatest figure 
257 


* OUT INTO LIFE 


by which to describe the amazing vitality of some men 
and women. But they are not those who force their 
total energy into one passional stream. They pour it 
broadcast into work and play, into art and beauty, into 
comradeship and into leadership. While passion exists 
it tempts to isolation. But really vital natures cannot 
be held within its grip alone. The joy of other creative 
things takes its turn in possessing them. They insist 
upon expressing themselves in a thousand ways dis- 
connected with sex. If in these ways they are at one 
with the man or woman they love, they are fortunate.* 


Fortunate indeed! Happy the man who can share 
his thoughts with his wife!—who can talk over his 
business with her, with her enjoy the education of 
their children, and with her study and love nature, 
art, science, history, and the acts and aspirations 
of contemporary humanity! Together!—it is a 
marvelous word: it is a test word too: unless you 
and your wife can find your major interests and 
“do things” ¢ogether, you will hardly have a real 
home. 

Most of all, a home’s happiness depends upon the 
mutual loyalty of the man and wife. What is it 
that keeps a strong man loyal? Is it his physical 
love for her? Is it common interests? Both of 
them may change and fade. It is his own promise. 
When a true man says, “I take thee to be my wedded 
wife, from this day forward, for better, for worse. . .,”’ 
he means what he says. It is an oath registered 
in heaven. The woman may become an invalid, 
even a mental invalid, but so long as she remains 
his wife he will be her true husband. She need 
waste no thought about his constancy, for he has 





* From The Atlantic Monthly. Used by permission. 
258 


HOME AND MARRIAGE 


made a vow to himself. This is real marriage. 
Only when you have met the woman for whose 
sake you are ready to take such an oath upon 
yourself are you ready for marriage. 

Girls.—The best if not the only way to find the 
person for whom you would take that oath of 
marriage is, paradoxically, not to look for her 
at all. The young man who does his work, attends 
to his own business, and does not busy his mind 
with appraising young women as to their desir- 
ability, will some time, if there is someone for him 
to marry, meet her—and know it. 

Remember that your present is the past of your 
future. The way you live your life to-day will be 
a happy or a horrid memory in after years. If 
to-day you treat every girl as you would like to 
have men treat your sister, you will have no to- 
morrow of regret when you meet her who you know 
is worthy of an allegiance unsullied. Life takes on 
a new exaltation to a man who, when at last he 
meets the woman who is made for him, can say: 
“For your sake I have kept myself the man I 
knew you would have me be!” 


For Discussion 

1. If getting married means incomplete preparation for 
life-work, what should a man do? How much 
capital should a man have before he marries? 

2. Do you consider that there is anything wrong in 
dancing? 

3. Anything wrong in “petting”? How about it in the 
light of the last paragraph of the text? 

4. Do you think a man ought to have a number of girls 
on his calling list, or one at a time? 

5. Since women to-day have all the rights and priv- 


259 


AO UCE EN TOME ECR 


ileges of men, should men still continue to give 
up their seats to them in street cars? 

6. Can any man make good in life who has not first 
fought his way through to complete control of his 
passions? 


For FurtHEer STupy 


. What was Jesus’ attitude toward women? Read 
John 4. 4-42; Luke 7. 36-50; 10. 38-42; John 19. 
25-27. 

8. Give instances of a wife’s being of assistance to her 
husband in his life-work. 
9g. What relation have a clean mind and body to physi- 
cal efficiency? Get your answer from a physician. 
co. You will find one man’s idea of a good wife in Provy- 
erbs 31. 10-29. Do you agree? What do you 
consider the qualities of an ideal girl? 


~I 


For REFERENCE 
G W. Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapters XVI, XXXI. 
R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Chapter XXIX. 
G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, Chapter 
XVI. 
R. E. Speer, A Young Man’s Questions, Chapter XIII. 


260 


CHAPTER XXX 
SAVING TIME 


Tuoucn still in the prime of his life, Edward 
Bok has already published six books and innumer- 
able magazine articles. For thirty years of his 
business life he assisted in publishing The Ladies’ 
Home Journal. Every month he read manuscripts 
and supervised the business end of the enterprise. 
He built up the circulation of the magazine to two 
million copies—a record never before achieved by 
any magazine in the history of the world. The 
last issue which he published as editor presented 
another record unattained by any single number 
of any periodical: it carried between its covers the 
amazing total of over one million dollars in adver- 
tisements. Besides building up the immense organ- 
ization which made this possible, he was constantly 
in touch with his community and yet never neg- 
lected his family. He founded, with others, the 
Child Federation of Philadelphia and the Merion 
Civic Association. He was vice-president of the 
Philadelphia Belgian Relief Commission, member 
of the Y. M. C. A. War-Work Council and State 
chairman for Pennsylvania; he was a member of 
the executive committee of the Philadelphia War 
Chest and State chairman for Pennsylvania of the 
United War Work Campaign. His life has been a 
series of accomplishments. Week by week has seen 
work completed. 

Systematizing your time.—What is the secret of 

261 


OUT INTO LIFE 


the enormous productivity of this life and others 
like it? There are doubtless many such secrets, but 
one of them certainly lies in the fact that Mr. 
Bok early discovered how to organize his time. 
There are only twenty-four hours in every day. 
They are given to all of us to employ in whatso- 
ever way we will: we may fill them with matters 
trivial or matters important. 

Most of us live, as a child does, without looking 
ahead very far. A child will pass from playing 
with his blocks to asking his father questions about 
electricity, and on to puzzling out a word in the 
newspaper, and thence to looking for a pair of scis- 
sors to cut out paper dolls, and so on ad infinitum. 
He selects a task, not because it is the most im- 
portant but because it is the nearest to hand and 
uppermost in his mind. It is inevitable that a 
man who lives without blocking out his work ahead 
should fall into the same way of living: he will 
not accomplish first the work which is first in 
importance, but will spend himself on trivialities. 
To get things done one must take time to estimate 
the relative importance of his various possible 
activities, allot them the time commensurate with 
their importance, and then stick to the schedule 
of his allotments. 

A schedule of work also allows for greater con- 
centration upon each task as its turn comes. When 
you have definitely set apart an hour for a given 
piece of work you are less likely to be haunted by 
the bugaboos of other tasks waiting to be done. 
A ticket agent who has an unorganized crowd 
clamoring for tickets at his window is far more 
likely to grow distracted than the agent whose 

262 


SAVING TIME 


patrons line up and pass him one by one. Get 
your tasks lined up! 

What, then, are the more important parts of a 
man’s life which he ought to plan for? 

There are his duties in his regular vocation. 

There are his duties to his community. 

There are his duties in his home. 

These are primary to all others, and these he 
will arrange so that each will have its due share 
of his time. 

There are two other matters which cannot readily 
be included as business, community, or family 
duties but which in the long run will benefit all 
three—recreation and avocation. 

Recreation.— Doubtless a further secret of Edward 
Bok’s success is that he has never allowed his 
duties to crush the play spirit out of his mind. 
He has realized the value of periodic diversion from 
regular work. Claude Richards quotes Professor 
George John Romanes, a British biologist and 
shrewd observer of life, as saying: 


In all the places of the civilized world, and in all classes 
of the civilized community, the struggle for existence is 
now more keen than ever it has been during the history 
of our race. Everywhere (people) are living at a pressure 
positively frightful to contemplate. Over all the length 
and breadth of this teeming land men and women and 
children, in no metaphor, but in cruel truth, are strug- 
gling for life. Even our smiling landscapes support as 
the sons of their soil a new generation, to whom the free- 
dom of gladness is a tradition of the past, and on whose 
brows is stamped, not only the print of honest work, but 
a new and saddening mark—the brand of sickening care. 
Or if we look to our universities and schools, to our pro- 


263 


’ OUT INTO LIFE 


fessional men, and men of business, we see the same 
fierce battle rage—ruined health and shattered hopes, 
tearful lives and early deaths being everywhere the 
bitter lot of millions who toil, strive, and love, and bleed 
their young heart’s blood in sorrow. 


What is needed is evident. It is picturesquely 
put in the counsel of Ptah Hotep, an ancient Egyp- 
tian, to his son: 


The archer hitteth the target partly by pulling, partly 
by letting go; the boatman reacheth the landing partly 
by pulling, partly by letting go. 


It is hard for us in busy America to learn to let 
go. But for mental health’s sake we must. The 
mind grows stale which is not at times diverted, 
turned aside, from its routine responsibilities. 

The best kind of diversion for any man is, there- 
fore, in general, that which is farthest removed 
from his regular work. It may be sheer play— 
baseball, golf, tennis, canoeing, tramping, or other 
outdoor sports—or any of the inside games—billiards, 
pool, checkers. For a man who does his daily work 
inside the outdoor exercises are plainly much the 
better kind. 

Some forms of play are good and some are bad; 
and each of us, if we are to maintain our efficiency 
at the top notch, must learn to distinguish between 
the two varieties. 

Plays which tend to deaden, rather than quicken 
our minds, are not good for us. Gum-chewing is 
play for a minute, and so is rocking to and fro in 
a chair, and so is listening to most jazz music, but 
to keep these up a whole afternoon or evening— 

204 


SAVING TIME 


why not take a bit of opium and ‘descend the first 
step toward stupidity in a simpler way? All forms 
of play, if too long drawn out, have the same effect. 
Many men waste evening after evening at cards. 
The main objection to many motion pictures and 
popular plays is not so much that the stuffy theater 
in which they are shown slows up the bodily processes 
as that the trite, unoriginal plots blunt one’s intel- 
lectual zest. 
Richard C. Cabot, M.D., defines good play: 


Good play is subject to rules; it has a clear-cut form 
and organization. It may use rhythm and repetition, 
but subordinates them to improvisation and adventure. 
It gives intense and varied delight, but in such dynamic 
form that pleasure is ever quickly lost and found again. 
It is full of give-and-take, dramatically loses its life to 
find it, and ever seeks, asks, knocks at the door of the 
unexplored. 


Does your form of recreation meet this standard? 

Avocations.—Sometimes a man’s play becomes so 
regular and absorbing to him as to resemble a 
minor occupation. It becomes an avocation. 

One usually comes upon his avocation naturally, 
following the line of his interests. Some men carry 
it with them from boyhood, as Edmund Clarence 
Spencer the banker his writing of poetry. Others 
pick it up later, as the late J. Pierpont Morgan, 
having amassed his fortune, set about collecting 
gems of art for his own and the public museums. 

There is no reason why an avocation should not 
earn one a bit of extra money. Many men engaged 





1 What Men Live By. Houghton Mifflin Company. Used by per- 
mission. 


265 


* OUT INTO LIFE 


in clerical work enjoy keeping chickens or growing 
vegetables—and incidentally save grocer’s and 
butcher’s bills. Some hobbies, on the other hand, 
are expensive. Only the wealthy can collect clocks 
or old manuscripts. 

An avocation may grow so large as to be in 
conflict with one’s regular vocation. There is a 
real danger of one’s becoming so interested in the 
sideshow that he forgets the big ring. Many 
young men, for instance, who have taken up 
orchestra work for their amusement have found 
that owing to the late hours they have had to 
keep, their vitality has been impoverished and their 
efficiency in their daily task impaired. An avoca- 
tion should remain an avocation. 

A man need not limit himself to a single avoca- 
tion, nor to the same avocation for life. It is all 
a matter of balance. The educated man should 
know everything about something and something 
about everything. In his main profession he has 
a chance to learn everything about something. In 
his spare time he may learn something about every- 
thing. There is the public library and cne’s own 
books. Practically all of your general culture after 
your graduation from school will come from read- 
ing. Or if your profession keeps you immersed in 
books, there is music, or agriculture, or wood-work- 
ing—anything for the sake of balance. Use your 
avocation to fill out your vocation. 

By way of practical test, review your life as you 
are at present living it. Do your recreations bal- 
ance off your regular work? After spending a day 
at mathematics and science and German in the 
classroom, do you while away the evening at mah 

266 


SAVING TIME 


jong? Would not an hour or so of physical exercise 
before supper make a fitter man of you? Or if 
you have been playing all day, what can give more 
pleasure than a good book in the evening, under 
the living-room light? Are you well balanced? 

The main necessity is that one should budget 
his time. Busy men are never far from their date- 
books, where are entered both their standing appoint- 
ments and the other innumerable special engage- 
ments. If one is determined to do first things 
first, the longer in advance he gets them into his 
schedule, the likelier he is to get them done. 
Every efficient minister, for instance, marks down 
at the beginning of the year the hours for his regular 
services, committee meetings, calling, and even 
times for personal study and devotion, and then 
fills in the rest of his schedule as the year advances. 
Here is a page from such a calendar—the standing 
dates are italicized: 

Thursday, March 28 

g-1 Study—Sunday morning sermon. 

2 Meet A. E. at parish house. 

2:30 Letter to R. M. | 

3:00 Address Parent-Teachers’ Association — E. 
Fairfield. 

4:30 Hill funeral. 

5:00 Gym. 

7:00 Study—prayer meeting. 

7:30 Prayer Meeting. 

8:30 S. 5S. Committee. 


If you are not already doing so, why not secure 
an engagement book and at least make the attempt 
to schedule your time? 

It will help! | 
267 


bo 


IO. 


* OUT INTO LIFE 


For DIscussIon 


1. You have heard it said: “If you want a job done, 


take it to the busiest man you know.” Is this a 
good rule? 

Applying Doctor Cabot’s definition of good play, 
how do you estimate baseball? golf? tennis? 
canoeing? tramping? billiards? chess? dancing? 
card parties? movies? 


. Should every man have an avocation? 
. Which is the better time to get your studying done— 


day or evening? 


. In budgeting your time for a week, how many hours 


should you assign to church and other community 
work? 


. In the case of most men, do the leaks in personal 


efficiency occur because of their lack of energy or 
lack of system? 


For FurRTHER STUDY 


. Plan and give a talk as to an intermediate Sunday- 


school class on the subject of this chapter, using 
as your point of departure Ephesians 5. 15-106. 


. What devices for doing first things first were used by 


Benjamin Franklin, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William 
Ewart Gladstone, or other men who have a record 
of great weekly accomplishment? 


. Make out a schedule of your time as you actually 


spent it last week (or this week). 
On the basis of this, make out a budget of your time 
for next week. Can you stick to it? 


For REFERENCE 


R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Chapter IX. 


R. E. Speer, A Young Man’s Questions, Chapter XII. 
Irving Fisher and E. L. Fisk, How to Live, Chapter IV. 


268 


CHAPTER XXXI 
SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS 
You may remember the famous formula which 


Charles Dickens put into the mouth of Mr. 
Micawber. In an American form it would read: 


DL ORLALY. INCOME on cers ete eaten $100. 
Monthly expense............. $ 99.99 
CECI Sees nueva cae ny Ee eer r tere an Happiness 
NEONLOI VS INCOME y o.-- seateia vee ei eae $100. 
Monthly expense... ..2....... $100.01 
PROSOLG ee Pied claire ties Gare RCN Misery 


You may remember also the words of the railroad 
genius James J. Hill: 


If you want to know whether you are going to be a 
financial success or a failure in life, you can easily find 
out. The test is simple and infallible. Are you able to 
save money? If not, drop out. You will lose. You 
may not think it, but you will lose as sure as you live. 
The seed of success is not in you. 


It is the same ability required to save single dollars 
at twenty that is needed to save hundreds of them 
at forty. 

The necessity of money saving.—It comes as a 
shock to many to discover that there are thousands 
of commercial failures in the United States every 
year, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. 
Most of these failures would have been avoided if 
the men concerned had understood money-saving. 

269 


OUT INTO LIFE 


On the other hand it sometimes gives one a shock 
of surprise to learn what the regular saving of small 
sums will do. Study the following table, for instance: 


MONEY AT FOUR PER CENT INTEREST COMPOUNDED SEMI-ANNUALLY WILL AMOUNT TO: 


et 1 Year |2 Years|/3 Years|4 Years|5 Years|6 Years|7 Year Years/|9 Year| Yrs. 


.{$ 52.92/$107.97|$165.25| $225.85] $287.85} $352.35| $419.50] $489.38) $563.08) $638.72 


496.17| 678.15| 864.39| 1058.16] 1259.79| 1469.57| 1690.85|1917.97 
"""| 964.78] 540.25} 826.87| 1130.13] 1440.49] 1763.41| 2099.42| 2449.02 2817.80|3196.30 





In one short year your two dollars a week will 
amount to over a hundred, and in ten years to well 
over a thousand! 

Men like Russell Sage who have become very 
rich have attributed their success to two factors: 
careful accounting and budgeting. They have 
known how every cent they have earned has been 
spent, and they have planned ahead just how much 
they would spend in the week or month to come. 
The man who follows these two practices, keeping 
account of his expenses and budgeting ahead, will 
certainly save money; the man who does not will 
almost certainly be unable to save. 

Perhaps you already keep a notebook for your 
income and spendings, every night before retiring 
putting down your record for the day, as, for 
example: 


Income Expenses 
May 6 Wages $25 Deposited in Savings Bank $2.50 
Carfare 25 
Laundry 50 
Lunch -40 


—Ete. 


By totaling up at the end of the month and com- 
paring items you can find out where you have 
270 


SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS 


spent too much, and where you might profitably 
have spent more. Then you are ready to make 
your budget for the month to come. 

One man, looking over his expenses for the pre- 
vious month, noticed that besides his insurance 
he had saved only one dollar. The next month 
he proposed to save, all told, ten dollars, or one 
tenth of his income. To do this he had to rearrange 
certain other expenses. His budget looked like 
the one following—and the proportions of this budget, 
by the way, may serve as a model for an income 
of this size: 











Income Actual income last month Probable income 
next month 
Wragesi soo: Se Whee aata hs cunt amee $99. $99. 
PC etest OUISA VINO Get esis diee ook 1, 
PUM Ie tat Cee aN ee ats $99. $100. 
Expenses Actual expenses last month Proposed expenses 
next month 
Ue ne cy Ree ee pa $6. $6. 
Deposited in savings bank........ | 4. 
Se ae ie ee re 28. 30. 
DIR ee a ale wee 20. 20: 
PERCE Nise a sass oie ae 6.75 6. 
Furniture and equipment......... 2.25 2, 
RIS EP PAE ei yn s cleceene «acne 2.50 2.50 
) ied Crs es C6] Oa a 1.50 1.50 
TS 6 A ea ree 9.75 8.75 
CN Se cle ga Re A 1.50 Te 
Pee, Gap TIONETY 6. es .50 .50 
Recreation, vacation............. Ke 3.50 
Education, books, papers......... 1.50 1.50 
Pep ACCOR TILEY .b 0). cc Gielen es ae 8.25 8.25 
OUTS ay al oely Pe ee ee y 1.50 
BEETLES Ss bg kk ons om 8 5.50 : 
PVE Ete Cs eee SMe Ar $99. $100. 


Once the budget is made you are ready to enter 
upon the next month with a clear-cut purpose. 
271 


OUT INTO LIFE 


Live within the items, and you are on the road to 
usefulness and’ happiness. 

You doubtless learned all this long ago in school. 
But have you applied it to your own life? 

What achievements for Christ are the Russell 
Sage Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation 
for the advancement of human knowledge! They 
were both made possible by the saving of pennies. 
The business you take up may not be one in which 
you can possibly make millions; but you will be 
more successful and so much more serviceable to 
your fellow men if you save your money systemat- 
ically. If you can now live on your whole income 
without difficulty, by stinting yourself a little you 
can certainly live on nine tenths of it—and put 
the saved tenth in the bank. If you are really in 
earnest about doing your best. for the kingdom of 
Christ, save money! Some day you may do great 
good with it. 

Habit the helper.—To cultivate money-saving, 
and, indeed, all the other practices an intelligent 
man should have, you have a marvelously useful 
ally in your habit-forming equipment.. Another 
secret, and this probably the fundamental one, 
which Mr. Bok and other men of great output have 
learned is that of putting their habits to work 
for them. 

You cannot escape forming habits of some sort! 
Your nervous system is physical and must obey 
the laws of the physical world. One of these laws 
is a tendency to repetition. William James quotes 
Léon Dumont to illustrate it: 


Everyone knows how a garment, after having been 
272 


SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS 


worn a certain time, clings to the shape of the body 
better than when it was new; there has been a change in 
the tissue, and this change is a new habit of cohesion. A 
lock works better after being used some time; at the 
outset more force was required to overcome certain 
roughness in the mechanism. It costs less trouble to 
fold a paper when it has been folded already. The 
sounds of a violin improve by use in the hands of an 
able artist, because the fibers of wood at last contract 
habits of vibration conformed to harmonic relations. 
This is what gives such inestimable value to instruments 
that have belonged to great masters. Water, in flowing, 
hollows out for itself a channel, which grows broader 
and deeper; and, after having ceased to flow, it resumes, 
when it flows again, the path traced by itself before. 


Just so, habits form in our own lives. It is easier 
for us to do anything the second time than the 
first time, the third time than the second time, 
and so on. | 

Some mature men are able to attend two or 
three meetings of boards of directors every day, 
care for a large correspondence, lead a useful polit- 
ical life, do generous public work of all sorts, and 
be present unfailingly at the services of the church 
on Sunday, while others who seem to have equally 
good minds, and ideals as high, accomplish but 
little. The reason is solemnly evident. The latter 
failed in their youth, the habit-forming time, to 
cultivate the habits of achievement. They learned 
to dream: they did not learn to do. Get started 
right in your personal habits! 

Learn how to cultivate good habits.—But how 
to get the right start—that is the question. For- 
tunately, the psychologists have been studying this 


273 


OUT INTO LIFE 


question for many years and are able to answer it 
with definiteness. Here are the rules for habit- 
forming as stated by Dr. George Herbert Betts: 


1. Motivate the formation of the new habit and the drop- 
ping of the old. 


Suppose, for instance, that you are trying to 
learn to study. To do so you will need incidentally 
to unlearn all your habits which stand in the way 
of study—superficialness, for instance. The first 
necessity is to make yourself want to acquire the 
new habit and lose the old. Think of how much 
the new habit will help you in your life-work, how 
much more of a man you will be, how much greater 
your influence! Desire it strongly. 


2. Reward the new habit and penalize the old. 


When you are trying to acquire the new habit, 
keep your friends posted on your success or failure, 
and pray about the matter, too, that the appro- 
bation or disapproval of others may be a reward or 
punishment to spur you on. 


3. Make sure that the desired act 1s clearly defined in the 
mind. 


Many people fail at this point. You desire to 
improve your study-habits—definitely, what are 
they? Analyze study: it is a thorough mastering 
of the meaning of every detail—it is a mental 
arranging of these details in order of their im- 
portance—and it is a memorizing of a certain work- 
ing minimum of the important points. Specifically, 
in which of these processes do you need strength- 
ening? 

274 


SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS 


4. Launch the new habit with initiative and determination. 


Your old habits are at present the easiest course 
for you to pursue. To break away from them calls 
for all the firmness you can muster. Say not: 
“I'll try to study better’—say: ‘‘Any man who 
cannot study is mentally a child, and I am going 
to tighten up on myself right now!” 


ss. In launching a new habit, permit no return to the old, 
but act as often as possible in the direction of the new. 


If you are trying to improve your study, do not, 
after following your new rules on Monday and 
Tuesday, drop back into the old slipshod method 
on Wednesday, when you have not so much time. 
Better cover a little ground, well, on Wednesday, 
than do a large amount in the old way. 


6. Organize habits so that they will reenforce each other. 


If you are attempting to improve in the study 
of Latin, do not continue under the superficial 
method in chemistry or English or any of your 
other subjects. 

The will!—These rules will help you to establish 
good habits all along the line. But they are only 
rules. They have all—and no more than—the value 
in teaching you to form good habits that a treatise 
on swimming would have in teaching you to swim. 

In the last analysis the building of your character 
lies in your own hands. Making good depends 
not upon your brains, but upon the You that 
makes your brains work—not upon your feelings 
but upon the You which lies beneath your feelings 
—upon the will which is Yourself. 


275 


OUP CUNT Gs Tes 


Review your life, study out what habits you ought 
to form, and then begin without waiting—taking 
courage from the thought in Doctor Betts’ 
words: 


Every bit of heroic self-sacrifice, every battle fought 
and won, every good deed performed, is being irradicably 
credited to you in your nervous system, and will finally 
add its mite toward achieving the success of your ambi- 
tions.} 


For DIscussIon 


r=) 


. Do you think it is necessary for every man if he 
wants to live at the height of efficiency to keep a 
cash account? 

2. Or to budget? 

3. Does any man ever descend so low that he lacks the 

will power to form new habits? 

4. Is it possible to be really thrifty and yet not some- 

thing of a tightwad? 

5. Is it a Christian practice for a man to lend money to 

his friends? 

6. Are bad habits easier to form than good ones? 


For FurRTHER STUDY 


7. Name twelve habits Jesus developed in his boyhood 
and youth. 

8. Turn back to the chapter on “Men and Money” and 
write out for yourself six to ten financial com- 
mandments, on the subjects of earning, spending, 
giving, and investing. 

9. Make a cash budget for next week. 

10. Study seriously the habit you need most to overcome, 
and the habit you wish to establish in its place. 





‘From The Mind and Its Education. Courtesy of D. Appleton 
and Company. 


276 


SAVING MONEY, AND OTHER GOOD HABITS 


Then apply Doctor Betts’ rules. Which rule do 
you break most easily? 


For REFERENCE 


G. W. Fiske, Jesus’ Ideals of Living, Chapter XVIII. 

Margaret Slattery, Talks With the Training Class, Chap- 
ters VIII, [X. 

G. H. Betts, The Mind and Its Education, Chapter V. 


277 


CHAPTER XXXII 
THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER 


You have now made your study of the oppor- 
tunities life lavishly offers you, in vocation, in 
home, and in neighborhood, and have put to your- 
self the question: What must I do to qualify? A 
good deal of advice has been given you, based upon 
the experiences of men who have lived lives which 
can be described as victorious. But if you forget 
all the rest, remember—have you not already 
verified it in your own experience?—that the drive 
of a man’s life is his religion. 

Some men seem to have the impulse to make 
their lives count for good who are apparently lack- 
ing in religious experience. They doubtless have 
within them more of the gospel than we think, for 
religion is as subtle and inscrutable as the human 
soul itself, and is sometimes hard to recognize. If 
religion were worn on the outside, like clothes, we 
could always tell who possessed it, but being a 
little spring at the bottom of a man’s nature, it is 
difficult to penetrate to. It is doubtful if there is 
any good man wholly without a religious sense. 

But the men who become centers of strength, 
who radiate life, who are “‘springs of living water” 
to their fellow men—there is no doubt about their 
religion! They do not bury it. It bursts the bounds 
of their personality. 

A cloud of witnesses.—These men of power have 
a fresh and immediate touch with Him who is 

278 


THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER 


Power. From all walks of life one gets the same 
testimony: 

Speaks Thomas Alva Edison, the world’s great- 
est inventor: 


There is a great directing head of things and people— 
a Supreme Being who looks after the destinies of the 
world. I still believe in the religion of our Lord and 
Master. 


Said Michael Faraday, the physicist, at the end 
of his epoch-making volume Researches in Chemistry 
and Physics: “I believe that the invisible things of 
God are clearly seen.” 

Said Pasteur, the father of modern pathology: 
“On all sides I find the inevitable expression of the 
idea of the infinite. The supernatural lies at the 
bottom of every heart.” 

The great popular writers of the day are pro- 
foundly religious. H. G. Wells was for a time 
a materialist, George Bernard Shaw an atheist, 
Maeterlinck almost an agnostic, but to-day in their 
maturity their lives are made strong by a belief 
in God. 

Said the musician Haydn: 


When I was employed on the Creation I felt myself so 
penetrated with religious feeling that before I sat down 
to the instrument I prayed to God with earnestness that 
he would enable me to praise him worthily. 


Mr. William L. Fletcher, who has worked with 
several hundred employers in hiring men for very 
responsible positions, in writing to young men 
about what are usually called the purely secular 

279 


- OUT INTO LIFE 


professions, says as his final word in How to Get the 
Job You Want: 


I have had a great deal to say about mental and phy- 
sical development. In this last chapter I should like to 
ask you to consider your spiritual development. I am 
not a crank on religion, but I don’t think that the man 
who neglects his spiritual development can ever be 
counted successful. You certainly can’t win big business 
success without faith, and faith is a spiritual quality.! 


In the same vein speaks another business man, 
Roger W. Babson: 


The need of the hour is not more houses or freight- 
cars, not more factories or ships, not more legislation, 
education, or banking facilities, but more religion. The 
need of the hour is religion. 


And here are the compelling words, born from 
his own experience, of a successful promoter and 
manager of public utility corporations, and banker, 
Philip Cabot: 


Using the language of the trade, if we call God the 
Power House, or Generating Station, and man the trans- 
mitting wire to the factory or to the job, we get what 
to me is an illuminating analogy. In that case, there is 
no power in the wire: the wire simply passes the power 
on. It is true that appearances are otherwise, for if you 
carelessly take hold of a live wire it may kill you. Many 
of us have seen a broken trolley wire squirming and 
blazing on the street. Some of us have been in the high- 
tension room of a power house during a thunder storm, 
when the lightning broke across the horn-gaps of the 
transformers with the sound of machine-gun fire, or at 





1 Used by permission. 
280 


THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER 


the main switchboard when dead grounding of the trans- 
mission line blew out a main breaker with a roar like a 
riven oak. 

It is hard to imagine that there is no power in the 
wire, but it is true, all the same. Disconnect it for a 
second from the power house and it is dead. The wire 
has no power. It merely passes it on. 

And so it is, I think, with God and man. We may 
pray for power to do something for ourselves, but we 
shall not get it. If we ask for power to do the will of 
God, he will pass the power through us and his purpose 
will be carried out.” 

The religious attitude is evidently one which 
has produced men of force and vigor. Even though 
physically weak, they have been strong. Think 
of John Calvin, one of the most versatile of men, 
as expert a politician as a theologian, producing 
no less than forty volumes, and yet a lean con- 
sumptive, fighting for life all his days. Think of 
the poet Milton, though totally blind, producing 
the great epics of the English language—that he 
might thereby glorify God! 

You may ask the question, How then can I 
cultivate religion? The answer is: You cannot. A 
man will not compass God: God will compass him. 
God has already taken the initiative and stands 
ready to be your guide and inspiration. 

It is all a question of making the right contacts. 
To revert to Mr. Cabot’s figure, in order to have 
an electric current pass through a wire it is necessary 
that there should be a complete circuit. An electric 
car has power only when its wheels are on the 
ground and its trolley is on the wire. These two 





2 Courtesy of The Atlantic Monthly. 
281 


VOUTAINTO LIFE 


contacts are absolutely essential, for only when 
they are made can the power from the generating 
station flow in circuit through the electrical mechan- 
ism of the car. There may be hundreds of volts 
of power in the ground, as it were, but unless the 
connection is made with the wire the car will not 
feel that power. 

Our contact with God is already made: the 
Creator has not cut himself off from his children. 
We are grounded. But unless we make another 
contact, we cannot know his power. ‘The contact 
necessary is an unselfish sense of responsibility for 
the welfare of his world. When we have truly 
assumed that responsibility, and only then, the 
awareness of spiritual power begins to ripple through 
the soul. A selfish person, who makes no contact 
of service with the needy world, is like an electric 
engine standing helpless with its trolley down. 

It is all beautifully told in George Macdonald’s 
ballad: 


“T said, ‘Let me walk in the fields.’ 
He said, ‘No, walk in the town.’ 
I said, ‘There are no flowers there.’ 
He said, ‘No flowers, but a crown.’ 


“T said, ‘But the skies are black; 
There is nothing but noise and din.’ 
And he wept as He sent me back: 
‘There is more,’ He said, ‘there is sin.’ 
“T said, ‘But the air is thick 
And fogs are veiling the sun.’ 
He answered, ‘Yet souls are sick 
And souls in the dark undone.’ 
282 


THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MATTER 


“T said, ‘I shall miss the light, 
And friends will miss me, they say.’ 
He answered, ‘Choose to-night 
If I am to miss you or they.’ 


“T pleaded for time to be given. 
He said, ‘Is it hard to decide? 
It will not seem so hard in heaven 
To have followed the steps of your Guide.’ 


“T cast one look at the fields, 
Then set my face to the town; 
He said, ‘My child, do you yield? 
Will you leave the flowers for the crown?’ 


“Then into His hand went mine 
And into my heart came He; 
And I walk in a light divine 
The path I had feared to see.” 


God cannot empower the soul whose motives are 
petty and mean, but when the great decision to 
live and help live is made, then—into the heart 
comes he. 

Confidence !—Therefore, take new courage. You 
cannot now know your future, but as sure as your 
life-purposes are lofty, so surely will God guide 
you. Cry with confidence, like Browning’s 
Paracelsus, as you face your life: 


“T go to prove my soul! 
I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first, 
I ask not: but unless God send his hail 
Or blinding fireballs, sleet, or stifling snow, 
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: 
He guides me and the bird. In his good time! 
283 


OUT INTO LIFE 


“Are there not 
Two points in the adventure of the diver, 
One—when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge, 
Two—when, a prince, he rises with his pearl? 
I plunge!” 


For DIscussIon 


. Why does not God force the world to be better? 
. What is the greatest thing in the world? 


3. Is the popular distinction between ‘“‘sacred’’ and 


H. 


“secular” justified? 


. Can a person be sure, when he makes his life-work 


decision, that God is directing him? How? 


. Must a man be dissatisfied with the world as it is in 


order to desire to make it better? 


. Is Christianity completely defined as the practice of 


friendship? 


For FurTHER STUDY 


. Read the story of the crucifixion in Mark. What is 


the effect of Jesus’ heroism upon those who love 
him? upon those who are in spiritual need? in 
sin? upon yourself? If you lead a self-sacrificing 
life, will it have, in small measure at least, the 
same kind of effect upon people as Christ’s life 
had? 


. Who, besides Christ, is your hero? Describe him. 
. In the first chapter is the sentence: “A healthy 


youth . . . accepts life as a challenge to do his 
best, and submerges every fear of failure in— 
what?” Now give a thorough answer. 


. Do not answer this without thought and prayer: 


what is your greatest ambition? 


For REFERENCE 
E. Luccock, The Haunted House, Chapter IX. 


R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Chapter XXXIII. 


284 
















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